The Tools menu commands provide easy access to a number of self-contained add-on Patran features, as well as to some specialized application modules, all of which are optionally purchased items and require their own software licenses.

Lists may contain either geometric or finite element entities.

The criteria that determine an entity’s inclusion in a list may be attribute or association.

The Attribute method identifies a distinctive characteristic that is shared by all members of the list. In the FEM application, a list of elements may be based on common element properties, material properties, or analysis results (fringe values), and for a node list you can specify coordinate values as well as fringe values. For a geometry list, on the other hand, you must cursor-select entities or enter their IDs, because the list generator does not recognize any attributes that are common for geometric entities.

With this method you can list a number of entities that are associated with one common entity or group. For example, you may specify that the list include those geometric entities, e.g., points, that are located at the same vertex, or on the same edge or face. The list of FEM entities, such as nodes, may be based either on their association with a geometric entity (e.g., vertex) or a group, or with an FE entity, for example an element edge.

After you created a list, you can associate its members with an existing group or, alternately, assign them to a newly created group.

You can create several lists and combine them, two at a time, into one comprehensive list, with one of the Boolean operations:

The Patran Mass Properties module is a tool with which you can calculate the mass properties of geometric and finite element models. The process may be applied to an entire model or to any of its subregions. For an overview of the theoretical background of mass properties calculations, see Summary of Mass Properties, 772.

The following mass properties are calculated and, if applicable, their symbols displayed:

The principal directions at the center of gravity may be presented in three different forms:

Where applicable, mass properties are calculated in both the reference Cartesian coordinate frame and in a user-specified coordinate frame.

For the results output of the mass properties calculations, you can request that Patran do one or all of the following:

The principal axes are plotted in proportion to the magnitudes of the radii of gyration of the corresponding principal inertias, as shown:

The newly created principal inertia coordinate frames will be assigned a coordinate frame ID that is the next available in the database.

Mass Properties report files are written in standard Patran report file format. In addition to mass properties calculation results, these reports also list all included entities and all rejected entities.

Mass properties are generated in units consistent with those used in the referenced geometry, element properties, and material properties.

Most mass properties calculations use the density, shell thickness, beam
cross-sectional area, non-structural mass, and concentrated mass values as defined in the Properties application. If you do not want to use the given element property settings, Patran can override them; the values of 1.0 will be assigned to density, thickness, or area, and 0.0 will be used for non-structural and concentrated mass.

Non-structural mass and concentrated mass will be included in the calculations, but direct-input mass matrices will not. Non-structural inertia will be ignored with no warning issued.

Mass properties can be calculated for the following element types:

Mass property calculations are based on the assumption that all beam and shell element offsets, as well as concentrated mass offsets, are zero. If an entity with an offset is referenced, a warning message will appear.

Mass properties of shell elements are calculated by treating the thickness as a weighting factor and assuming that all mass lies in the surface of the shell. Similarly, when calculating the mass properties of beam elements, the cross-sectional area enters as a weighting factor with all mass assumed to lie in the locus of the one-dimensional beam.

Consequently, mass properties calculated for these entities will be slightly different from those calculated for corresponding 3D solids.

For geometric entities, field properties (e.g., cross-sectional area) are integrated over the entity regardless of the property’s value type. For FEM entities, a field property is evaluated at the centroid of the entity if the value type of the property is real scalar, and is integrated over the entity if the value type is element nodal.

Discrete FEM fields can be used only for real scalar properties of FEM entities.

Patran can calculate mass properties of models made of composite materials. If a composite property, such as laminate thickness, is defined both as an element property and as a material property, the element property value will be used.

Material densities defined with fields cannot be used for mass property calculations.

When mass properties are calculated, it is assumed that all entities in a model conform to the selected analysis model type. If an entity is geometrically inconsistent with the analysis type, it will not be considered for the mass properties calculations. For example, if the analysis model is “2D Axisymmetric”, a surface that does not lie in the axisymmetric modeling plane will be rejected.

After mass properties calculations have been completed, the Mass Properties Report output will include a list of all ignored or rejected entities.

With this default option, you can calculate mass properties for all entity types (0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D).

In these models the following assumptions are made:

An axisymmetric model may contain axisymmetric shells and concentrated masses (2D and 0D entities) that lie in a specified modeling plane. If an entity is not in the modeling plane, it will be omitted from the mass property calculations and listed as a “rejected entity” in the output report.

Masses assigned to concentrated mass elements in axisymmetric problems are treated as linear mass densities. Patran calculates the mass of the equivalent 1D hoop by multiplying the input mass by . Similarly, the moments of inertia applied to concentrated masses in axisymmetric models are treated as linear moments of inertia. The inertia tensor of the equivalent 1D hoop due to the input moments of inertia is obtained by multiplying the input moments of inertia by .

The “2D Axisymmetric” option cannot be used to calculate mass properties of non-axisymmetric cyclic-symmetry models. These are treated as 3D models. Their mass properties will be calculated for the model only, not for the entire structure that would be generated by prescribed rotational and reflective transformations.

Beam elements can be defined with a variety of cross sections. The beam library offers a number of standard shapes as well as a means of defining your own “arbitrary” cross sections. In either case, you can request that the dimensioned profile and its calculated section properties be shown after you have entered all required dimensions or point coordinates. Optionally, you can also output a report file that contains all boundary information.

Industry standard beam cross sections are presented in a tabular form; after you select an item, the enlarged shape and its required dimensions will be displayed.

Standard-shaped cross sections may be constant or vary along the length of the beam. To create variable sections, you must use one or more spatial fields for dimensions, as well as provide a location for evaluation along the length of the beam. This may be defined either with XYZ coordinates or with a parametric function.

In addition to standard cross-sectional profiles, you can also create your own specific non-standard beam cross sections by generating arbitrary boundary contours. A boundary must be a closed loop that consists of straight line segments. The cross section may contain holes; these are generated by adding inner boundaries to the shape definition. Because the first loop defines the outer boundary, all subsequent loops must be located within the area enclosed by the first loop.

To define the cross section, you can

The arbitrary cross section is created by tracing the outline of an existing surface. The surface may be a trimmed surface but not with any degenerated edges or duplicate edges. A number of points are sampled on the surface boundary and their coordinates are placed in the spreadsheet. If the surface contains mesh seeds, the points are sampled at the seeds.

The boundary is drawn utilizing points whose coordinates are contained in a file. To be able to read the data and generate the profile, the format of the referenced file must be the same as the format of a Report File that captures the point data of a manually created cross section.

When you define an arbitrary boundary, you can also specify up to four boundary points as stress recovery points, at which you want to see stresses reported. Labeled with the letters C-F, these points may typically be located at the points where cross- sectional changes occur.

The Regions menu is found under the Tools pull down menu.

Regions are groups of entities that can be used as application regions for Loads and Boundary Conditions as well as Element Properties. They are general like Groups, but differ in that they are restricted (like Application Regions) in that they can only contain one topology type. Some Applications, such as CATIA import, will automatically create these Regions making them a convenient way to define LBC or Element Property application regions.

Unlike Groups, where the entire entity must be in the group, Named Regions can be defined with only portions of the entity defined such as the faces of a solid element or the edges of solid geometric entities.

Finite element analysis is seldom conducted as a single-run operation; frequently the process goes through several iterations. In each iteration the model may be “tweaked”, some dimensions or other properties of the model modified, and the analysis repeated until an optimal design is attained.

As a simple example, you may run a linear static plane stress problem with a certain thickness assigned to the elements. If the stress and displacement outcomes are well within the acceptable range, you may decide to reduce the element thickness, thereby decreasing the weight of the object, and run the analysis again. You may continue refining the model through several iterations, until the weight reaches a desirable minimized value without compromising the stress or other criteria.

This procedure can be automated through a series of design studies and, ultimately, design optimization.

Variables are those parameters, or properties, whose magnitude will be modified in the process of studying the solutions that can improve the design. The variable may be some dimension, an element property (e.g., plate thickness, beam cross-section), or a material property. To perform studies for the purpose of improving and optimizing a design through iterative solutions, you must parameterize the model, that is, identify and label variables and set up possible relationships between them.

When you define a model variable, a corresponding field may be created as well. This field is a linear function of the variable and it becomes available throughout Patran. Thus, if desired, it can be used to define additional model properties. Any changes made to the variable will also change the properties dependent on the field.

Results Templates provide a convenient means of storing in the database collections of settings that you can use to create plots, graphs and reports under the Results menu. Settings stored in Results Templates are applied to the Results Display Attributes and Plot Options menu settings for the following results tools: Deformation Plot, Fringe Plot, Marker Vector Plot, Marker Tensor Plot, Graph, and Report.

With the Rebar Definitions application you can create and display Abaqus beam shapes in Patran

The MSC.Fatigue software application integrates finite element analysis and fatigue life estimation techniques to perform fatigue calculations. Analysis results output includes full-color life contour plots to provide rapid assessment of fatigue in critical areas. This selection only appears in the Tools pulldown menu if a license is available.

Random Analysis is a random analysis software package used with MD Nastran and Patran. It was developed by field engineers at MSC.Software to offer a fast, integrated random analysis solution and all of Random Analysis’s analysis capabilities and generated results are available from within the Patran environment. To use this capability a software license must be available.

The MSC.Laminate Modeler application aids the design, analysis, and manufacture of laminated composite structures. It integrates various methods of simulating the manufacturing process (including draping of fabrics) with simplified, more efficient ways of storing and manipulating data required for the analysis of composite materials. This selection appears only if a license is available.

The Patran Analysis Manager provides convenient and automatic means to submit, monitor, control, and perform all other management tasks required by analysis jobs running either locally or on remote networked systems. This option is only selectable if a license is available.