MD Nastran

Temperatures including displacements

Thermal mechanical analysis

Scalable solution based on MSC Nastran foundation

MD Nastran is built on the foundation of MSC.Nastran. All the MSC.Nastran input files are 100% compatible with MD Nastran, making it easier for you to migrate to MD Nastran’s multidiscipline capabilities. With the familiar Nastran input file format, it is easy for you to convert your models for nonlinear analysis and perhaps couple with other disciplines. MSC.Nastran provides a scalable, affordable, and easy growth path to MD Nastran packages.

Fuselage load analysis

Car door impact study

Multidiscipline solution for improved efficiency

Rarely does a structure have to conform to design criteria from a single discipline. Multiple factors and often multiple disciplines need to be accounted for an effective design. The multiple disciplines could be as simple as a linear static load and a frequency study or as complex as accounting for loads from a multibody dynamic analysis for a crash study (e.g. vehicle skidding and impacting a barrier) or doing an implicit nonlinear analysis for pre-stress study followed by an impact study using explicit analysis which may still be followed by implicit analysis for any residual stresses.

Analysts often have to use multiple, incompatible tools to solve these various aspects of the design. However, accounting for the mutual influence can be cumbersome and sometimes simple impossible. Analysts have to resort to approximations or omission of the effects of some of the disciplines, which could lead to a non-optimal solution.

MD Nastran offers multiple advantages in tackling these problems:

• It offers a single platform for a wide range of disciplines. It leads to efficiencies in terms of model creation and maintenance.
• It facilitates smooth communication between disciplines. Multiple disciplines can be chained to account for effects of one type of analysis on another. For example, pre-stress results can easily be included in a dynamic study.
• It enables simultaneous incorporation of multiple disciplines in a single model. This coupling helps in obtaining a more accurate solution and possibly a better optimized solution.

Topology optimization with contact

Topology optimization of spare tire mount

Multidiscipline optimizationn

MD Nastran supports the same optimization capabilities of MSC.Nastran. However, the response and constraint functions can now be extended to multiple disciplines supported by MD Nastran as well.

• Includes multidiscipline response and constraint functions. E.g. exterior acoustic response as well.
• Nonlinear response optimization capabilities to account for nonlinear behavior of the system.
• Multi-model optimization going beyond a single model. With the use of multiple models running multiple analyses (e.g. modal, implicit nonlinear, crash), it gives broad flexibility to users to optimize the structures for multiple disciplines.

Brake analysis (thermal-structural)

Acoustic-structural coupling

Multiphysics for enhanced accuracy

Product development teams need to verify and optimize their designs for multiple disciplines, including those with various physics like thermal, acoustics and fluids. They need to understand how thermal history or thermal state affects structural behavior, how vehicle trims influence cabin acoustics or how flow induced stresses or deformation affect a system’s behavior.

With support for a chained, uncoupled approach and a coupling method, MD Nastran gives you the flexibility to include the influence of multiple physical phenomena on your designs. Scalability of MD Nastran also enables you to conduct full vehicle studies without sacrificing accuracy. A few examples of the problems that can be addressed by MD Nastran are:

• Interior and exterior acoustics
• Brake squeal analysis
• Fluid filled bottles
• Hydroplaning
• Brake heating
• Plastic heat generation during forming

Multidiscipline modeling and pre/post processing support with Patran

Multidiscipline modeling and pre/post processing support with SimXpert

Integrated pre/post-processing support

You can drive all MD Nastran products through the common GUI offered by Patran and SimXpert, two of MSC’s modeling and pre- and post processor solutions. MSC.Patran is the world’s most widely used pre/post-processing software for Finite Element Analysis (FEA), providing solid modeling, meshing, and analysis setup for Nastran, MD Nastran, Marc, Abaqus, LS-DYNA, ANSYS, and Pam-Crash.

SimXpert is a next generation simulation platform providing a fully integrated multidiscipline user environment. Integrated with MSC's advanced multidiscipline (MD) solver technologies, SimXpert provides an efficient end-to-end solution that gives users native CAD access with bi-directional interoperability, pre-processing, solving, post processing, report generation, and automation capabilities within a single easy-to-use solution.

Flow across flow

Composite failure

Partner technologies

MD Nastran is more than a collection of features. It is an integrated solution that enables you to solve various simulation problems across multiple disciplines. To achieve this it has integrated the nonlinear technology from Marc and Eulerian explicit dynamics of Dytran are integrated with MSC.Nastran’s foundation technology. In addition, MSC has integrated various technologies from our partners.

• Freefield Technologies – Exterior acoustics capabilities to couple with structural analysis
• AlphaStar – Micromechanical failure models for composites for better accuracy
• LSTC – Explicit dynamic analysis of structures, which is coupled with Dytran’s technology

Acknowledging the diverse collection of CFD solutions used at various companies, MSC has also developed an OpenFSI solution with the ability to interact with any fluid analysis code. This helps with the coupling of structural and fluid analysis without restricting users to a specific CFD solution.