When an analysis code is selected as the current analysis code, Patran closes the Analysis PCL library of the previously selected analysis code and opens the Analysis library of the newly selected code. This library should contain all the PCL functions needed to control the Analysis forms for the chosen analysis code. The expected name of the library is <analysis_code>.plb. The entire Patran file path will be searched for this library. The Analysis libraries for the MSC supplied analysis interfaces (MSC Nastran, MSC.Marc, etc.) are delivered in the $P3_HOME directory.

The Analysis PCL libraries will be automatically removed and added by Patran. This is done using the sys_library ( ) PCL function. See System Functions, 188. For this reason, the Analysis PCL libraries should not be added explicitly by the user: not by the !!LIBRARY directive, not by an explicit sys_library ( ) call, not within any of the initialization files, such as “init.pcl,” and not through the command line.

If Patran is unable to locate the Analysis library, the analysis code may not be selectable on the Analysis Preference form, or the Analysis pick on the main form may be ghosted, or no forms will appear when Analysis is selected. If the Analysis library cannot be found or if the wrong Analysis library has been found, the safest course of action is to rectify the problem, exit Patran and start back up again. If the Analysis library does not exist or is deficient, create or modify this PCL library before exiting Patran. If the analysis library cannot be found, expand the Patran file path to include the location of the library or move the library to a location along the file path. If you have multiple Analysis libraries and the second library is taking precedence over the desired library, move the desired library to a higher location in the file path or change the file path to give precedence to the location of the desired library. The path changes can be added to an initialization file such as init.pcl or can be typed directly into the command line. Both the path changes and file location changes require exiting Patran and should occur before opening the Patran database in the re-started Patran session.

We maintain separate PCL libraries for the Analysis PCL functions simply because there are as many versions of the Analysis functions as there are analysis interfaces to Patran and placing every version within the p3patran.plb library would make it unnecessarily large and slow.

For more on creating PCL libraries, refer to Libraries, 28 and Directives, 9. For details about modifying the Patran file path refer to Path Directive, 29 and PCL Start-Up File, 35.