FEMAP vs Patran
FEMAP vs Patran
(OP)
As the subject says I'm a bit curious as to if you prefer Femap or Patran for pre- and postprocessing. Ignore the price and keep it technical. Would a Patran user consider to change to Femap or viceversa because "the other" is better.
Or is the question not interresting, they are equal? Or perhaps one is completely superiour.
Regards
Thomas
Or is the question not interresting, they are equal? Or perhaps one is completely superiour.
Regards
Thomas





RE: FEMAP vs Patran
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
i think PATRAN and FEMAP are just as capable, there could well be things that i'm not interested in that make one superior to the other. i think PATRAN hasn't been developed recently, so that could be a concern.
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
I started with FEMAP and went onto PATRAN.
FEMAP is easy to get going in quite quickly, PATRAN is not. FEMAP is user friendly but not totally logical in menu layout. PATRAN is definitely user unfriendly, sometimes rather clumsy to use and I would say is no better in logical menu layout. Both could do a lot better.
Both programs have built in errors which you only find when you discover them. Both programs are not too well documented and a bug list would do a lot to help but the producers don't seem to want to admit they have buggy programs. I have spent hours trying to make some commands work only eventually to find out they simply just don't work as described in both programs.
I found that I could do somethings in FEMAP very easily but it was very difficult in PATRAN and visa versa. I could always produce an acceptable model with both programs. For me, PATRAN always took more time.
One quickly obvious point was that PATRAN supports more solid element types than FEMAP. PATRAN does offer more than FEMAP but consequently becomes more involved and cumbersome.
An interesting point is that FEMAP v9 layout was completely reworked and now it looks to me very similar to PATRAN's layout.
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
And thanks for the input so far.
/Thomas
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
In my opinion, unless you need a feature which is unique to Patran , Femap is a better choice.
regards
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
For those with a N4W license and a current support contract, there is an offer from MSC to change to the combination PATRAN/NASTRAN called FEA2004 at no extra cost. (The meaning of 2004 in the title is not clear to me.) The PATRAN/NASTRAN combination offers more analysis capabilities than the N4W package.
The move from using FEMAP to PATRAN would be a major step but for some it might be a good move as in certain industries PATRAN is certainly the market leader.
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
Your advice would be to stick with Femap.
Correct?
Thomas
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
I can only guess that work in Bangalore on the new MSC product must have reached fever pitch by now, and all this coming on top of Dassault Systemes buyout of Abaqus which effectively relegated MSC's position with respect to Catia V5 (which IS the de facto standard for Aerospace, Automobiles ??)
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
I have to do some serious thinking before making up my mind.
But, anyway, thanks a lot for your input.
/Thomas
RE: FEMAP vs Patran
Patran is good for solid meshing. That is it!
FEMAP has more advantages. More confortable, better commands etc. You can do everything with it in an easy way!
The only dissadvantage compare to the PATRAN is the displaying of the large model.
Both of them bad for the detailed mesh definition. Sometimes you can realise that you have 2 surfaces with a common edge, but the mesh seed will be different on the edge.
FEMFAP is very strong in the hand meshing or in the modification of an existing shell mesh. You can create very esay beam models too in FEMAP, while in PATRAN this is not so easy!
In FEMAP you can change the color of everything, in PATRAN everything is predefined! Sometimes the colors help us to identify details.
I prefer FEMAP.
Irwin