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Patran 2010
Release Guide
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P3:V2010:Z:Z:Z:DC-REL-PDF
Contents
Patran Release Guide
Patran Release
Guide,
Technical Support 8
Web 8
Phone and Fax 9
Email 10
2 General Enhancements
Implicit Nonlinear (MD Nastran SOL 400) 2
Step/Subcase Designation 2
Shareware 23
MechPat 23
FEM-Elements -Regular Cube Mesher 2 24
Solid Sphere Mesher 25
Campbell Diagram Utility 26
Customer Requests 27
29
Index 29
Chapter 1: Patran 2010 at a Glance Patran Release Guide
CAD Access
InterOp R20 SP1
The Spatial InterOp, Parasolid based translators, have been updated to the R20 SP 1 revision. This gives
CAD access support based on the table in Supported CAD Access, 6. MSC makes periodic updates to
CAD access and are available through download patches at:
http://www.mscsoftware.com/support/software_updates/#patran
Note that MSC has converted to the new Connect API version of the Spatial InterOp translators.
Parasolid 20
Parasolid import now supports up to version 20. The Patran Parasolid kernel is based on Parasolid 19.
Catia V5 R19
Support for Catia V5 R19 is available through the Parasolid import method using the Spatial InterOp
translators.
NX 5 / NX 6
Support for NX 5 is available on most platforms and NX 6 on Windows is now available.
1SOLs400 and 700 are only available in MD Nastran and must be submitted using Patran running in
MD mode.
4 Patran Release Guide
Key Highlights
General Enhancements
Set Current Working Directory
The ability to set the current working directory was added in this release. See section Set Current Working
Directory, 3 for details.
64 Bit Port
A production version of Patran for Windows and Linux 64 bit machines is available in this release. The
32 bit version of Patran can still be run on 64 bit machines. Some details of the 64 bit port are listed in
Native 64 Bit Port, 13.
Utilities
Please review the Utilities/ What is New menu to see additions/updates made to the utilities.
For a complete description of these configurations, see Required Hardware & Software Configurations
(Ch. 5) in the Patran Installation and Operations Guide.
6 Patran Release Guide
Supported CAD Access
† The p3_ProE and p3_ProENGINEER executables are built using Pro/ENGINEER version 2000i and therefore will
not work with earlier versions of Pro/ENGINEER. p3_ProE and p3_ProENGINEER Access allows reading of
.geo geometry transfer files generated from other OS installs of Pro/ENGINEER Access. See Pro/ENGINEER
Access Setup (p. 14) in the Patran Installation and Operations Guide.
‡ UG NX supports only 64 bit machines.
**Only Parasolid (transmit file) import is supported. Parasolid transmit files generated on other OS platforms can be
imported on LINUX.
Chapter 1: Patran 2010 at a Glance 7
Supported Analysis Preferences
If you have concerns about an analysis, we suggest that you contact us at an early stage.
You can reach technical support services on the web, by telephone, or e-mail:
Web
Go to the MSC.Software website at www.mscsoftware.com, and click on Support. Here, you can find
a wide variety of support resources including application examples, technical application notes, available
training courses, and documentation updates at the MSC.Software Training, Technical Support, and
Documentation web page.
Chapter 1: Patran 2010 at a Glance 9
Technical Support
Email
Send a detailed description of the problem to the email address below that corresponds to the product you
are using. You should receive an acknowledgement that your message was received, followed by an
email from one of our Technical Support Engineers.
General Enhancements
2
Implicit Nonlinear (MD Nastran SOL 400) 2
Set Current Working Directory 3
New GUI Skins 6
Native 64 Bit Port 13
SimManager R3 Integration on Linux 16
Patran Help on the Web 18
ABAQUS Preference Enhancements 19
Auto Select Picking 22
Shareware 23
Customer Requests 27
2 Patran Release Guide
Implicit Nonlinear (MD Nastran SOL 400)
This capability is available from the File|New, File|Open & File|Open Recent dialog forms.
The File|Open Recent dialog also allows for more recent files to be viewed directly from the form
and automatically opened if selected (this is controllable via a toggle).
4 Patran Release Guide
Shaded Background Used For Non-MD Patran
A more user-friendly way to quickly control the background color is offered through the “Cycle
Background” 3-way toggle icon found on the Home ribbon, which may also be found on the Quick
Access Bar. Each time this icon is pressed the background will change from the current background
color, to black, to white and repeats. You can set this in Viewport – Modify, to black, to white.
6 Patran Release Guide
New GUI Skins
Overview
Patran’s graphical user interface (GUI) on Windows can now sport a new look and feel. New GUI skins
are available using the -skin command line argument:
%patran -skin <skin>
where the available skins are:
office2007 (default)
xproyale
xpluna
le5
vista
xptunes
The database content is independent of which GUI skin option is used, including the legacy Patran skin
(no -skin option used) so there is no problem switching skins on the same database between Patran
sessions. The desk top icon properties for invoking Patran can be edited to bring up Patran with the
desired skin.
Turn on skins by
using the -
skin option on
the command
line.
Chapter 2: General Enhancements 7
New GUI Skins
Used in conjunction with the new right mouse button (RMB) capabilities, these new GUI skins provide
the user with an exceptional experience. The tabs in the ribbon are equivalent to the legacy Patran GUI
skin’s applications. To open an application, click on the tab. To close an application, select another tab.
The Home tab will close any application currently open and show no tab application. The xptunes skin
(-skin xptunes):
8 Patran Release Guide
New GUI Skins
Click on the
Application Ribbon
Icon to Bring up the
Application Form. A
double click will put
away the
application or bring
it back.
Icons Pull Up
Familiar Action –
Object – Method /
Type Menus
Chapter 2: General Enhancements 9
New GUI Skins
Only individual icons can be added to the quick access bar and remain persistent from session to session.
If you add an entire icon grouping or pulldown, it will remain only for the duration of the session.
Chapter 2: General Enhancements 11
New GUI Skins
• Make sure you have adequate swap space in case it is needed (often systems with large
amounts of ram assume that no swap space will be needed).
• If on a 32 bit windows system set 3 GB ram switch ON.
• Turn Free Face Only (Figure 2-1) Display mode under Display – Finite Elements to ON for
graphics display manipulation.
• Turn Entity and Highlight Labeling under Picking Preferences (Figure 2-2) OFF.
The following variables need to be set or are asked to be set during installation in order to communicate
with the SimManager server. For more information on this, the user is directed to the SimManager
documentation.
SM_RICH_CLIENT_CONFIG_FILE <location of SmRichClt.properties file>
SM_RICH_CLIENT_IC_HOST <host_name>
SM_RICH_CLIENT_IC_PORT <port number>
SM_RICH_CLIENT_IC_PROTOCOL http
SM_RICH_CLIENT_IC_WEBCONTEXT SimManager_R3
SM_RICH_CLIENT_ROOT <path>
Client access to a SimManager server via Patran is only supported on Windows and Linux machines. For
more information on setting these environment variables, please see Patran Environment Variables
(p. 52) in the Patran Installation and Operations Guide.
18 Patran Release Guide
Patran Help on the Web
Several previous versions of the Patran context sensitive help are also on www.mscsoftware.com. If you
would like to use one of the previous versions you will need to edit your site_setup.pm or user_setup.pm
file and add the following:
On Windows:
setEnv('P3_HELP_DIRECTORY','http://www.mscsoftware.com/patran/patran_20
10/html_patran/');
On Windows you can also set your browser preference. For Example:
setEnv('P3_BRW_HELP','C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe');
On Unix/Linux:
setEnv P3_HELP_DIRECTORY
http://www.mscsoftware.com/patran/patran_2010/html_patran/
On Unix/Linux you will also need to set your browser preference. For example:
setEnv P3_BRW_HELP firefox
Set the P3_BRW_HELP environment variable to your browser of choice.
If you would like to view the Patran 2010 help outside of Patran, you can access it using the following
link:
http://www.mscsoftware.com/patran/patran_2010/html_patran/wwhelp.htm
Chapter 2: General Enhancements 19
ABAQUS Preference Enhancements
1D Pressure Elements
The ABAQUS preference now has support for the *DLOAD ABAQUS entry to create pressure loads on
1D elements. This will let you to put distributed loads on beam elements.
In addition to this picking change the “Show Picking icons” toggle on the Preferences - Picking form is
now ON be default. This causes the “t” and “-” icons, which toggles between select/un-select, to show
up on the picking filter menu. This change was made because the right mouse button (RMB), which was
previously used to un-select entities, is now used to display the RMB menu used for model manipulation
and interaction. This toggle can be changed interactively and the status is saved/controlled by the
pick_mode_switch variable in settings.pcl.
Chapter 2: General Enhancements 23
Shareware
2.10 Shareware
Shareware is found under the Utilities menu in Patran.
MechPat
Shareware to group geometric bodies in Patran and create Adams rigid bodies from them. Found under
Applications – Mechpat – Adams Rigid Body Builder.
24 Patran Release Guide
Shareware
CR # Description
1-207017422 Results from only one of two subcases were being recognized when attaching a certain XDB file.
1-224541999 Patran was crashing when submitting a Marc contact analysis using a specific glued contact
configuration.
1-225675930 Stress results from SOL 400 Nastran job not loading into the database via an OP2 file.
1-214218661 SOL 400 auto detection of discontinuities option and feature angle not written to input file for
contact bodies.
1-209366561 Undefined TREF and GE values not written correctly on Nastran PCOMP entry - should be blank
and not zero.
1-73240931 No contact status results for glued contact visible from Master/DBALL file.
1-190723085 Setting the search order in glued contact table causes fatal Nastran error.
1-229666261 Initial load factor for adaptive load stepping not written correctly for Nastran NLAUTO entry.
1-201680911 PCL call ui_wid_get( file_id, "DIRNAME", dir_name ) failed for ui_file_create.
1-76537319 Nastran SOL 400, PCOMPLS - various problems corrected when writing this Nastran entry.
1-76524241
1-76524211
1-76524177
1-76524151
1-76524265
1-201681161 xplus_ideasp_env_setup.pm references incorrect Registry key and value for I-DEAS 12
1-201664504 Patran 64bit installer needs to install C++ redistributable run time for Windows 64 bit machines.
1-229241571 LS-DYNA3D translator failed on Windows 64 bit machines.
1-226511628
1-238894248 Large list boxes behaved differently on Unix where they are always shown in "Scrolled Down"
position. On Windows, the behavior is correct
1-78152616 After importing optimization results via OP2 file, unable to update the analysis model with new
optimized design varialbe data. This used to be available via modifying the design study,
selecting the design variable form, and then selecting the design cycle.
1-201184619 Patran crashed when reading in a certain bulk data files.
1-77732679 Cannot enter a negative non structural mass in Patran to adjust the mass.
1-51257236 Patran slow to plot stresses (when averaged by property).
1-201388666 Patran crashes when making graph vs. time of Abaqus ODB with multiple element types.
1-81107411 Patran can not plot stress tensor via Marc DRA (t16 file) access due to unsupported elements.
28 Patran Release Guide
Customer Requests
CR # Description
1-200507145 Patran higher then 2005r3 does not filter Load Cases for Loads/BCs Plot Contour.
1-204211401 Patran does not write weight constraint for topography optimization.
1-225741151 MSC.Explore update - support SOL 106 nonlinear results
1-226095761
1-228867342
1-239622301 In Patran 2009r1, the following PCL functions have been made available:
xy_window_location_get ( window_name, x, y )
xy_window_size_get( window_name, width, height )
First argument is a string and other arguments are reals.
1-79420181 Patran - External SE create - DMIGOP2 option not selectable.
1-21430771 Performance regression in ABAQUS input file reader.
23595 ABAQUS preference request to support inertia loads on 0D elements.
1-226510955 Patran Crashes extruding certain solids.
1-238125958 Switching to 3D:FullSpan beam display mode is very slow.
1-251149191 Patran - Tools/Properties Import appears not to work when attempting to create new properties.
1-252995071
1-251808281 Patran does not write NLMOTPS,TSHEAR,TSHEAR.
1-250846898 Regression in default values of T1/T2 fields of TEMPP1 Nastran entries.
1-252274151 Model disappears when displaying results under Design Study / Post Processing menu.
1-250623265 General Section (CBEAM) option writes out incorrect pin flags
1-253107416 sf_record PCL function in the PCL start up files causes duplicate session files.
1-250554091 Segmentation fault and traceback message after File-Quit Patran on some Linux configurations
(LX86).
1-251885801 Import bdf - Contact Distance Tolerance set to -9.9e+010 (should be blank)
1-250704310 Regression in reading certain ABAQUS fil result files.
39876 Save history lines disabled since Patran 2000r1 on Windows.
MSC.Fatigue Quick Start Guide
Index
Patran Release Guide
Numerics K
64 Bit Port, 4, 13 Key Highlights, 2
Index A L
ACIS, 6 LINUX, 5
AIX, 5 Load Steps, 2
C M
CAD Access, 2, 6 MD Nastran Preference, 3, 2
Catia V5, 2 Meshing, 4
InterOp, 2 MSC Nastran Preference, 3, 2
Parasolid, 2
Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire, 2 N
UG NX, 2 Nastran, 3, 2
CATIA V4, 6 Nonlinear Analysis, 3, 2
CATIA V5, 6
Customer Requests, 27
O
Operating systems, supported, 5
E
Enhancements, 2
P
Parasolid, 6
F patran help on the web, 4
File New/Open, 3 Platforms, supported, 5
Pro/ENGINEER, 6
G
GUI Skins, 4, 6 R
Red Hat, 5
H
Hardware, 5 S
Highlights, 2 SimManager Integration, 4, 16
HP, 5 Skins, 4, 6
SOL 400, 2
I Solaris, 5
IBM, 5 Steps, 2
I-DEAS, 6 Subcases, 2
Intel, 5 Sun, 5
Supported OS levels, 5
30 Patran Release Guide
Supported platforms, 5
U
Unigraphics, 6
Utilities, 4
W
Wildfire, 6
Windows, 5
Working Directory, 3