NeiNastran ease of use
NeiNastran ease of use
(OP)
Hello all.
We need to purchase either NeiNastran or Algor.
We've demo'd Algor 2 yrs ago and it was quite easy and met our needs, esp. the manipulation of solid models, application of loads and boundary conditions.
We have not used NeiNastran since 2002, and this was only manipulating an FE model, no solids. It twas manageable, but not necessarily easy.
Can anyone tell me how easy the latest NeiNastran (with Femap)is to use? We are looking for something that our engineers may not use for a few weeks, then easily pick up.
We specifically do not have full time FE work, so something intuitive will be useful.
We are fully aware of NeiNastran's stellar support.
Any thoughts?
tg
We need to purchase either NeiNastran or Algor.
We've demo'd Algor 2 yrs ago and it was quite easy and met our needs, esp. the manipulation of solid models, application of loads and boundary conditions.
We have not used NeiNastran since 2002, and this was only manipulating an FE model, no solids. It twas manageable, but not necessarily easy.
Can anyone tell me how easy the latest NeiNastran (with Femap)is to use? We are looking for something that our engineers may not use for a few weeks, then easily pick up.
We specifically do not have full time FE work, so something intuitive will be useful.
We are fully aware of NeiNastran's stellar support.
Any thoughts?
tg





RE: NeiNastran ease of use
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
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I would have to say this alone is the best feature of V9 for us because it allows us to use solid models which we can build directly from CAD files.
Noran just released a version of NEiWorks which comes with the Solidworks kernel and is a complete FEA package. This may be what you are looking for because it handles solids very well and includes the full NEiNastran solver for about 1/3 what the FEMAP NEiNastran bundle goes for.
I have some limited experience with Algor and do not believe that have automated surface meshing capability. I also know that in performance comparisons I have done with large solid meshes NEiNastran is much faster for both mesh generation and solution time, if that matters.
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
When you demoed Algor, did you do the demo or did they do a web cast for you? We elected to do our own evaluation and were not as impressed with its “ease of use”. The learning curve on FEMAP is steep and you will be happy later when you need to use the advanced meshing options that have not made their way into Algor yet.
We have about 5 people here all using NEiNastran and FEMAP. When we started we were Patran users which is very different that FEMAP. We picked it up in about 3 days and were fully proficient in less than a week without any external training. Questions would come up, we called, got answers, moved on. Never regretted our decision once.
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
We are a full-fledged Autodesk Inventor office, and as such, we would probably be generating step files for import into whichever package we choose.
It seems counterintuitive to go to NEi Works, given the solidworks component, then.
Any idea how well the contact features stated above will work? We will demo it anyway, but I thought I'd get some more opinions...
tg
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
The contact works well with assemblies and a tolerance is provided to distinguish between gaps that are intended and tolerances. I am sure there are situations where it will fail but I have not found any yet.
What we do is mesh the entire assembly at once and then add the PARAM, CONTACTGEN, 2 for welded contact. That is it. If you need to specify a larger tolerance than the default there is another PARAM for that.
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
Algor does surface meshing, solid meshing, and mid-plane meshing. It has done surfaces and solids since it was a DOS-based program in the early 90's at least (prior to that, I didn't use the program).
Trainguy, what type of analyses are you doing (linear static, non-linear, impact)? I think either of these programs manipulate solid models from Inventor well. I do think Algor handles the meshing more easily, but certain types of analyses are faster in alternate solvers.
Garland E. Borowski, PE
Borowski Engineering & Analytical Services, Inc.
Lower Alabama SolidWorks Users Group
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
We are not talking about meshing which I know Algor can do like any other preprocessor. We are talking about automated surface contact where meshed surfaces in contact or near contact are automatically welded using surface contact weld elements. I know FEMAP has added this in their next release but NEiNastran has had it at the element level since V9. Either way it saves a lot of time. As far as I know only ANSYS and NEiNastran have this feature.
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
not sure i understand something you mentioned about Noran-are they adding features/geometry to a cad model to simulate a weld or are they treating the elements in the original drawing differently so as to simulate a weld - i believe algor claims to have several different options when it comes to simulating contact between parts in a linear static analysis such as fully bonding the parts or treating the parts as welded and also allowing for surface-to-surface contact allowing the parts to move independent of each other - on the matter of algor working with inventor-i believe that algor connects to inventor and that there is some level of associtivity between the two packages eliminating the need for igs transfer between cad and fea - perhaps someone else may know if my understanding is accurate
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
RE: NeiNastran ease of use
What is welded contact? Is it a complete merging of the 2 solids over the whole contact surface, or is it just on the edges that would be accessible by a welder, that the FEA user could select...
tg
RE: NeiNastran ease of use