We used to use MSC.Nastran in my group for many years with Patran. I remember a different MSC 15 years back than what it has become now. It is a shame, but the good news is that other companies are listening. MSC thinks they can solve their problems by just raising their prices justified by...
NEiFusion would still be a great program to learn since you will also learn Solidworks and Nastran. If you have the 300 node demo version of NEiNastran you can learn a lot with that as well and not have to spend $2000. FEMAP is a very capable modeler and used widely and Nastran is also well...
I use NEiNastran with FEMAP currently and I have played with NEiFusion, which is essentially NEiWorks with SolidWorks included. SolidWorks is a great CAD product and if you are familiar with it or any other feature based CAD package you will not have a problem with. I saw Noran was promoting...
Hyperelastic materials are in the version 9.1 release. I know because I have the beta. Ask noran support for V9.1. I think the demo CD is not the most recent version. Not sure.
I have done some amazing things with NE Nastran non-linear. You can also check out their site for some very interesting animations that are on par with dyna and marc. I do agree with the LS-dyna comment. The NE Nastran non-linear capabilities are still very good especially surface contact and...
The rod is a simple truss type element that has axial and torsional stiffness. If you think of a truss where each member is pinned at its end, the rod element would be ideal. Do you need the stiffness matrix formulation?
Gap elements only work when the nodes are perfectly aligned. That is why surface contact is so nice. It does not have this requirement. What solver are you using?
What I was referring to was using a single hex element through the thickness and a laminate definition (PCOMP) to define the layer properties. This capability is possible in NEiNastran. I was not sure if you thought I was referring to using a single hex layer for each ply.
I am using Nastran now with 3d layered solid elements which give interlaminar tensile and shear stress. I use these stresses and compare them to the bond material allowable.
Excellent idea Garland. Sorting would also work. Once you have the ids you can see what areas are missing orientation. The only problem is that a blank could be a zero that was specified so it does not necessarily mean a problem. It would be nice if FEMAP listed the ids from the start since...
The 18 elements FEMAP is complaining about have no material orientation defined. I assume you have defined the orientation for the other elements in your model and that you know how to do this. When you export the model all you need to do is look at the Bulk Data file and look for CQUAD4 or...
