MSC.Software: Product Brief - Patran 2009 - What’s New Patran 2009 PRODUCT BRIEF
MSC.Software: Product Brief - Patran 2009 - What’s New
Patran 2009
PRODUCT BRIEF
Welcome to Patran 2009
This MSC.Software release of Patran continues to make strides in performance and solver support, while laying much of the groundwork for enhanced
user experience with an updated, user-friendly interface. Major areas of focus for this release include the following:
Modernized Interface
The Windows version of Patran provides a new, modernized interface for improved user efficiency. Users will see a fresh appearance to the menus
through a familiar Windows and Office ribbon structure making menu items easily accessible with less mouse travel and fewer clicks.
Usability and Productivity
Patran’s standard toolbar has been replaced by an easily-customizable Quick Access Bar (QAB). This lets you put any of the commands that you may
commonly use in an easily accessible QAB.
The Right Mouse Button (RMB) click provides drop down menus that are context sensitive. This gives users access to several relevant menu commands
without having to navigate away from the graphics region to make a selection.
Multidiscipline and Multiphysics Support
This release of Patran provides access to extended solver capabilities so analysts can setup and run an extended number of physics based event simula-
tions including advanced contact, composites, rotor dynamics, external acoustics, multiphysics, and more.
CAD Access
Patran continues to provide updates for the latest CAD platforms so users can continue to import and interact with the latest CAD releases.
Performance
Patran has been ported to 64-bit platform providing analysts with significant efficiency improvements in speed with less memory requirements when
importing and manipulating very large models.
Simulation Process and Data Management
Patran provides direct integration with SimManager so analysts can automatically publish, manage, and share data across the enterprise. Integration with
SimManager R3 is now available on Windows and Linux platforms.
Patran 2009 enhancements are designed to improve user efficiency, make it easier to access features through a modernized interface, provide superior
performance and speed improvements, and extend solver support so analysts can run a wider range of multidiscipline based simulations.
Thank you very much for your continued support of Patran.
The MSC.Software Product team
MSC.Software: Product Brief - Patran 2009 - What’s NewPRODUCT BRIEF
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Modernized Interface
Skins of choice
The Windows version of Patran offers the capability to change the
graphical user interface skin allowing the users to choose appearance
of the interface from available six options. These new skins provide a
fresh appearance to the menus in the familiar Windows and Office ribbon
structure. Additionally, this approach makes the menu items easily
accessible with less mouse travel and fewer clicks. The Patran database
itself is independent of the skin used, so you do not have to be concerned
about sharing files with users that may be using a different skin option.
Quick Access Toolbar
In the Windows version, the standard toolbar has been replaced by an
easily-cusomizable Quick Access Bar (QAB). This lets you put any of
the commands that you may commonly use to be placed in an easily
accessible QAB. Any changes you make to the toolbar persist across
sessions, so you do not have to repeat these actions. Custom icons
pointing to user-defined functions can also be added using the
p3toolbar.def file.
Easier Dynamic Manipulation
When you need to manipulate your model (zoom, pan, rotate), Patran now
lets you handle these dynamics by maintaining the mouse right within the
graphics region. This is achieved with the help of the hot keys of Shift and
Control buttons along with middle mouse button. This approach is very
convenient and efficient to users, because there is less hand motion to
toggle on and off the required type dynamic model manipulation.
Context Sensitive Menus
The Right Mouse Button (RMB) click provides drop down menus that
are context sensitive. This gives users access to several relevant menu
commands without having to navigate away from the graphics region to
make a selection. With the, RMB menus, users can perform operations
like verify and optimize on the model entities and also modify viewport
display and model orientation, among many other. The context based
system also offers smarter choices based on the selected entity. Expect
to see more dramatic enhancements in 2010 release on this front.
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MSC.Software: Product Brief - Patran 2009 - What’s NewPRODUCT BRIEF
Multidiscipline and Multiphysics Support
MD Nastran SOL400 Support
Step/Subcase Designation
The Step/Subcase distinction has been improved with introduction a tree
structure that helps users to have a clearer graphical representation of all
the step/subcase organization in a job. While this tree structure is currently
limited to this form, a more complete analysis tree will be implemented
in Release 2010. With the use of the Analysis tree and its drag-and-drop
capabilities, you can expect to see dramatic improvements in the way you
build and navigate through your model.
Contact
By providing graphical support to the contact capabilities of MD Nastran,
Patran enables to take advantage of
the full power of its nonlinear analysis
capabilities. The easy contact set up for
all types of elements, beams, shells and
solids, along with the various contact
parameters that control the analysis are
accessible right from Patran saving you
considerable model creation time.
MSC.Software: Product Brief - Patran 2009 - What’s NewPRODUCT BRIEF
Ease of Use
Current Working Directory
Often users start Patran in one directory, but open a file in a different
directory with the intention of continuing the work in that directory. In the
current version, the current working directory is automatically saved to the
location of the database. This saves effort in having to make sure Patran
gets started in the desired directory every time a new database is opened.
CAD Access
Spatial InterOp, the Parasolid based translators, have been updated
to the R20 revision. With this update, Parasolid import now supports
up to version 20. Support for Catia V5 R19 is also available through
the Parasolid import method using Spatial InterOp translators. NX 5
is supported on most platforms, except for Windows where NX 6 is
supported.
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Composites
The composites capabilities and enhancements introduced in MD Nastran
R3 are now supported by Patran including support for 3D solid elements
in addition to shell models, PCOMP and PCOMPLS property data and
various material failure models. This helps users take full advantage of the
capabilities of MD Nastran through the easy to use graphical interface.
Campbell Diagram
Campbell diagrams are indispensable for rotordynamic anlayses by
helping with identification of critical speeds and stability analysis. Patran
now provides a utility that can be used to plot these diagrams.
Results
Exterior acoustic results via the OP2 file can now be imported. The data
blocks supported include OARPWR1 (Acoustic power), OAIG1 (Acoustic
intensity), OUGFP1 (Field point mesh), and OVGFP1 (Field point velocity).
Marc
Multiphysics
Patran now supports majority of multiphysics capabilities of Marc
including:
• Electrostatic
• Joule heating
• Electrostatic-structural coupling
• Joule-structural coupling
• Magnetostatics
• Electromagnetics
• Induction heating
(electromagnetic-thermal coupling)
• Piezoelectric
The physics selection is done under the Analysis application. With these
additions, Patran provides access to even more of the complex nonlinear
analysis capabilities of Marc without the need for editing the input file.
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MSC.Software: Product Brief - Patran 2009 - What’s NewPRODUCT BRIEF
MSC.Software: Product Brief - Patran 2009 - What’s NewPRODUCT BRIEF
Performance
64-bit port
A native port to 64-bit Windows machine is available along with a pre-
release version for Linux 64 that can be used for testing. 32-bit production
version is still available for both 64 and 32-bit Windows and Linux as
well as all other supported platforms. With the 64-bit version, Patran can
access all the available memory on the system removing the limitation that
exists with 32-bit systems. This allows the user to work with larger models
without affecting performance. On average a 15% performance gain has
been noticed compared to 32-bit version and the meshing performance
remains linear as long as the program does not need to swap memory to
disk. Future plans include native 64-bit ports for all supported platforms.
Simulation Process and Data Management
Patran database integration with SimManager R3 is available on Windows
and Linux platforms. With this capability, users can publish and retrieve
Patran databases and other related files directly from within Patran using
the SimManager R3 client accessible from File pull down menu. Once the
server connection properties and setting are established, users can easily
communicate with SimManager.
Patran 2010 Future Investments
During the past few releases Patran has been improving its capabilities of
solver support. We have also embarked on a journey that is to provide an
exciting experience to the users in terms of user experience and ease of
use. As we have hinted in this document, Patran has already taken some
steps to enhancing the user experience and has laid the groundwork for
the next version.
Here are some of the key capabilities you can expect to see in the next
version.
• Expanded implementation of context sensitive menus that covers
materials, properties, loads and boundary conditions and more
• Analysis tree to provide a complete view of your model right on the
screen
• Drag and drop capability that would help you build and update analysis
tree contents and hence build the model more easily
• Improved support for solver functionality with ease of use as a priority
• Real time job and results monitoring
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The MSC.Software corporate logo, MSC, and the names of the
MSC. Software products and services referenced herein are trademarks
or registered trademarks of the MSC.Software Corporation in the United
States and/or other countries. All other trademarks belong to their
respective owners. © 2009 MSC.Software Corporation. All rights reserved.
Europe, Middle East,
Africa
MSC Software GmbH
Am Moosfeld 13
81829 Munich, Germany
Telephone 49.89.431.98.70
Asia-Pacific
MSC Software Japan LTD.
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Telephone 81.3.6911.1200
Asia-Pacific
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Telephone 65.6272.0082
Corporate
MSC Software Corporation
2 MacArthur Place
Santa Ana, California 92707
Telephone 714.540.8900
www.mscsoftware.com
PWN*2009OCT*PB
Patran – Your Future Assured
With your continued support, MSC.Software is committed to enhancing our core CAE modeling solution, Patran. This will provide our valued customer
with the following benefits:
User Efficiency and Lower Cost of Ownership
With the new and upcoming enhancements, you can see your current and future training support and training expenses reduced not only because of
staying with proven, familiar software, but also because of the usability improvements.
CAE Modeler Designed For Multidisciplinary Analysis with Multi-solver Support
Patran currently supports capabilities across multiple disciplines, including linear, nonlinear, implicit and explicit dynamics, thermal and so on. Its
commitment to open architectures lets you use a solver of your preference, even though it may not be from MSC.Software. Such openness and flexibility,
Patran is always available as your simulation needs grow or change.
Modernized Interface for Improved Efficiency
With the redesign of interface, you can gain an immediate boost in efficiency. The interface updates provide ease of use and make job of modeling/
analysis/post-processing easier by making commands more accessible and getting the tasks done quicker. All this is done, without sacrificing the
flexibility and openness of the product and without affecting any customizations you have implemented.
Improved Performance
Performance is a moving target, and Patran continues its efforts to provide the best-in-class performance. With the ports for 64-bit platforms, Patran is
able to work with extremely large models, with your system sources as the only limit. The 64-bit has also shown performance improvements, especially for
32-bit models. Further enhancements can be seen in the next and future releases.
MSC’s Commitment to its Customers
MSC.Software recognizes the needs of our customers and appreciates the confidence and trust they have placed in our products all these years. This is
also demonstrated by the customizations of the product and level of integration of our products into their CAE processes. MSC.Software commits itself
to customer needs and requirements and as such, has focused on improvements in usability, performance and solver support. You will be seeing more
advances going into the product and we, as always, are pleased to have you as a customer and partner.
MSC.Software: Product Brief - Patran 2009 - What’s NewPRODUCT BRIEF