Nastran In-CAD

Autodesk announced a fabulous addition to the Product Design and Manufacturing Collection, Nastran In-CAD.   One of the advantages of Nastran In-CAD is that it sits inside the software.  That’s correct.  What does this mean to you?  You do not have to export any files from your current CAD package and import it into another FEA package.   Everything sits inside Inventor or Solidworks.

To activate Nastran In-CAD you navigate to the Environment tab and you activate its environment.

At first, it looks the same as Inventor Pro’s FEA.  That’s a good sign as if you are new to Simulation if you see something that has a million buttons you would probably run away screaming.  There are a few things that are different straight off the bat like the Idealizations and Connectors command which is not that daunting as it is only 2 extra commands.

As in all the environments for Inventor, we have the familiar ribbon at the top with all the commands relevant to what you are trying to accomplish.  It opens up a new browser on the left which can be easily undocked and placed wherever you see fit.

As with the normal FEA you start with creating a new analysis and telling the software what type of analysis you would like to run.  Unlike the normal Inventor FEA, Nastran IN-CAD has a lot more to offer.

As you can see from the list above you are in for a treat when it comes to your simulation needs.  Nastran In-CAD is able to do both linear and nonlinear analysis which helps a great deal when trying to predict the behaviour of a product once it has been manufactured.

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

About the Author

SHARE

About the Author

SHARE