Load Cases in Patran are used to group a series of Loads and Boundary Conditions (LBCs) into one load environment for the model.

Load case names can be used to control the Loads and Boundary Conditions Set IDs in the neutral file. If a load case name is of the format “load_case_name.xxx” where xxx is a valid integer, all associated LBCs will retain this number as a Set ID upon export to the neutral file. If no Load Case names use the valid integer extension, then the non-empty Load Cases (ones with assigned LBCs) will be sequentially numbered beginning from 1. If one or more Load Cases exist with a valid integer extension, the largest integer extension is used as the base and all subsequent non-empty Load Cases without a valid integer extension are numbered as sequential increments off this value. For more detailed discussions of this form, refer to Create Load Cases (p. 160) in the Patran Reference Manual.