Nastran Interface

NASTRAN Interface is an application acting as a bridge between the pre/post processing program GiD and the most popular commercial NASTRAN codes.

NASTRAN Interface is designed to satisfy requirements of either high or low experienced users by introducing fast and easy to understand tools, as well as being capable to solve complex analyses.

NASTRAN Interface combines powerful GiD meshing and CAD geometry generation tools with one of the most popular and best functional Finite Elements code NASTRAN.

The easiness of NASTRAN Interface makes it a fast, comfortable, and versatile tool for almost any type of analysis.

Experienced users will find a powerful tool satisfying the highest level of demand and offering high level of automation of a problem data introduction.

Beginners will find an application with an easy and intuitive way to assign materials and conditions.

Characteristics

• Supported elements: bars, triangular, quadrilateral, tetrahedral and hexahedral

• Possibility to work with meshes with different element sets

• Different local axes definition techniques

• Linear Static Analysis

• Natural frequencies of a structure

• Dynamic Analysis with Transitient or Modal formulation

• Generation of input files for: NE/NASTRAN, MSC/NASTRAN, MI/NASTRAN

• Isotropic materials

• Fully integrated results postprocessor

• Available for WINDOWS, LINUX and UNIX operating systems

Pre-processing

By using different tools in the pre-processing module of Tdyn you can define geometries typical for CAD systems like NURBS or COONS. The pre-processing module allows importing CAD archives into NASTRAN Interface that are saved in IGES, DFX, VDA or PARASOLID or other formats. To help the geometry definition process, NASTRAN Interface works with variety of CAD tools or visualizations options.

Once the geometry definition is finished, the problem data is entered into the same environment of NASTRAN Interface. With NASTRAN Interface you have the important control of the mesh generation by being able to change the size and quality of elements.

Data Definition

NASTRAN Interface saves your time by using semiautomatic data definition tasks. Materials and boundary conditions will be able to be assigned directly over geometry entities without previous mesh generation, which makes this process to be a simple and natural. This makes NASTRAN Interface to be non-dependent on the finite element model. This means, that if for any reason, the geometry have to be re-meshed, it will not be necessary to re-assign the conditions.

On the other hand, the option to assign conditions and materials to mesh elements is also available to satisfy all possible necessities of different users.

Obtain a NASTRAN input file

The process of obtaining an input file for NASTRAN codes is completely automized and only needs to define some of the problem paramters. Optimizaed algorithoms make this task very fast even for models with big number of elements.

Post-processing

NASTRAN Interface has multiple forms to import results form different programs including: FEMAP neutral format (*.neu), PUNCH format (*.pch). With these features, NASTRAN Interface makes it posible to pre/post-process a model in the same envarioment using multiple visualization techniques depending on the eligible interpretation of the model.

Very useful are color maps, structure deformations drawings, graphic visualization of a stress in bars, reactions vectors, stress vectors, and many others.

Examples of Nastran Interface

Inside of GiD folder *.gid (example folder) there is anohter folder with the results of the analysis. It is possible to import the results with NASTRAN Interface to see them in the post-porcessing part.

Static Analysis
Static Analysis of a Gear
Frequency Respones Analysis
Modal Analysis

The Nastran-interface examples are available for downloading on the link:

Nastran 4.1 (11 MB)

Nastran-interface can be downloaded from:

GiD Pre and Post Processor:

The GiD menu option 'Data->Problem type->Internet Retrieve' permits to download Nastran-interface between others files. Notice that it is necessary to have internet access, preferably an high-speed connection in order to use this tool. Choose Nastran (Nastran examples if wanted) from the list of problem types and click on the 'Retrieve Problem type' button. This way Nastran problem type will be installed automatically inside the GiD problem types directory. Finally the GiD menu tool 'Data->Problem type' will allow you to select Nastran between all the installed problem types.

If you are experiencing difficulties accessing 'Internet retrieve' files, this can be caused by your proxy/firewall filter settings. Then, a possibility could be to change the proxy-server configuration settings due to all requests for websites must go through the proxy settings in order to access them. Another solution might be to access our public FTP server directly, as follows:

FTP server: ftp://www.gidhome.com/pub/gidmodules

Direct link to download: Nastran 4.1 (11 MB)

Nastran problem type can be downloaded inExamples of Nastran Interface

Inside of GiD folder *.gid (example folder) there is anohter folder with the results of the analysis. It is possible to import the results with NASTRAN Interface to see them in the post-porcessing part.

side the GiD Problem Types directory or to another subdirectory within it. This way Nastran will be shown automatically in GiD menu option 'Data->Problem type'. It should be emphasized here that 'Problem type->Load' tool also allows you to easily access Nastran if you has been located it anywhere whithin your computer.

Licensing

Our licenses are computer-based. Therefore, Nastran-interface full version can be activated by inserting a password in the GiD menu 'Help->Register Problem type'. In order to obtain an evaluation password for any of our software programs, please go to Password page.. For purchasing any professional password please contact us at: info@compassis.com.

Note: The executable files work in DEMO mode, thus are limited for calculations of small models only.

Operating System Compatibility

The supported operating systems for the most recent releases for Nastran are Windows (x86), Windows (64-bit, x64), Linux (x86) and Linux (64-bit, x64).

Getting started

If at any time you need assistance, you can find the help you need:

• Documentation, including software manuals and tutorials

• For more specific information about Nastran, please contact the Compass technical support team at info@compassis.com

• For more information about the GiD pre/post-processor requirements, visit GiD web site http://www.gidhome.com/

Trial password

Compass offers it's customers high quality software and services. To help our potential users understand our technologies and products, we offer Trial Activation Service by providing a trial passwords for our products.

Trial passwords are provided for a period of 30 days and activate the software from Academic versions to Professional ones. Please note that the software may only be used for testing purposes while using the trial pasword.

There are two ways to obtain a trial password:

1. Email us with the following information to info@compassis.com :

• computer name

• sysinfo

• platform name

You can get this information from a dialog box window Register Module under Help

More information about how to do it can be found here.

2. Use our Automatic password generator .