The MSC Sinda for Patran product fully integrates MSC Sinda with Patran. This product unites the strengths of MSC Sinda as a thermal analyzer with the full power of Patran, the FEM pre- and post-processor. The MSC Sinda for Patran product combines the main features of Nastran/Thermal, Patran/Thermal and MSC Sinda for FEMAP. It also adds some unique advanced thermal features, such as “radiation super elements”, geometric primitives utilizing “true geometric shapes” for radiation, and advanced convection using industrial standard correlations. The result is a seamless integration of MSC Sinda into the Patran/Nastran modeling system to enhance the thermal design process and allow for thermal stress/expansion analysis. The spaceship in the following picture is constructed using rectangles, spheres, cylinders, cones, discs, triangles, quadrilaterals, and paraboloids geometric shapes. Each of these “true geometric shapes” can be one radiation node, or have a simple primitive mesh describing the number of elements in the two directions of the shape.

The revolutionary new concept of “radiation super elements” allows small FEA facets to be grouped into one super element that has only one view factor and absorbs heat flux, thus greatly reduces the number of nodes in the radiation model and shortens the time needed to perform the analysis. The results from this simplified radiation model are distributed over a much finer conduction model using advanced algorithms that add resolution back into the conduction model by knowing the parameters of each conduction element.

A powerful compatibility feature of this product is that a model built in MSC Sinda for Patran is not dependent on a particular radiation code. So if a company currently using NEVADA decides to switch to TSS, TRASYS, or THERMICA, the models will run automatically and not become obsolete.

Another significant feature of this product is the convection correlation lib, which allows users to pick one of 44 MSC Sinda industry-standard convection correlations modeling internal/external forced convection and natural convection, then easily attaches this to a convection load.