What is PATRAN/NASTRAN?

PATRAN is a powerful, general-purpose, pre- and post-processing software for Finite Element Analysis (FEA). It provides a rich set of tools to create, manage, and visualize FEA models. NASTRAN is a widely used FEA solver that performs the numerical calculations to simulate the behavior of structures and mechanical components under various conditions. PATRAN is commonly used to build the FEA model (geometry, material properties, loads, boundary conditions) and then export it to NASTRAN for solving. After NASTRAN solves the model, PATRAN is used to visualize and interpret the results (e.g., stresses, strains, displacements).