Femap with NX Nastran vs old NEiNastran

Question

Femap with NX Nastran vs old NEiNastran

tstanley (Mechanical)

(OP)

5 Jun 15 17:23

Hi:

It has been a year now since NEiNastran and Femap went their separate ways. My maintenance just ran out so it is decision time for me.

I am interested to know others' experiences switching from the NEiNastran version solver to the NX Nastran solver.

My work is often with composites and the worry is that some composites functionality will be lost unless Femply is included to make up the difference. I still prefer to use Femap rather than switch to something different.

Tom

jotunn (Aeronautics) · Answer 1 · 2015-06-05 19:36:19

I was faced with the same decision a couple of months back.

Siemens/NX offered a good financial incentive to make the switch away from Autodesk/Nei. Even with that offer, I opted to stay with Autodesk due to product familiarity, a perceived lack of support (for low seat-count customers) from Siemens, and the couple of composite-specific shortcomings you elude to.

So far, the latest Autodesk nastran solver/editor appears identical to the last Nei versions, just re-branded. In other words, no major head-aches yet. Reading between your lines, I share the same concerns of what the future holds in relation to Femap support of Autodesk nastran. Right now things are fine, but they haven't been separated long...

Did I make the correct decision? Only time will tell. Until then, I'm still drawing squares like a pro.

SAITAETGrad (Aeronautics) · Answer 2 · 2015-06-07 03:26:47

We also faced this decision. We had just purchased modules I & II on dongle six months before the announcement. I immediately made contact with the Femap/NX reseller we had looked at initially before signing with NEi. Great incentive to go with NX. But, Autodesk/NEi offered modules I thru V at no extra cost. The advanced non-linear solver paired with NX is actually not NX but a whole other solver...and it therefore costs a ton. That made the decision a fairly easy one. We did, however, pick up the Femap/NX reseller for our Femap support (Applied CAx). Highly recommend. With Autodesk, I have to say...quite concerned with the small pro user group on the Autodesk forum as compared to the Nastran-In-CAD product for Inventor. Time will tell but I would think stagnation is likely. That said, not an immediate concern.

stressebookllc (Aerospace) · Answer 3 · 2015-06-09 03:33:34

I like FEMAP and NEi... tough one.

Applied CAX guys are good guys, and also Predictive Engineering's George Laird (owner) is a cool dude too, smart guy. I know him personally.

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tstanley (Mechanical) · Answer 4 · 2015-07-12 14:55:10

Thanks for your replies:

In the end I chose to go with Femap with NX Nastran instead of just staying with the existing Femap 11.1 and NEi Nastran. I don't know whether the deal made financial sense in my particular situation, but the feature that I gained was the ability to use the non-linear static solution which hasn't been available to me.

Now I'm learning about time steps, tolerance for convergence and number of iterations. And how much memory it really takes. I purchased another external hard drive to store files and free up memory on my computer for the scratch file.

Tom

stressebookllc (Aerospace) · Answer 5 · 2015-07-12 22:51:49

Alright then, new adventures... :)

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