MSC.Software Releases Patran 2010

SANTA ANA, CA - MSC.Software, a provider of simulation software and services, today announced that Patran 2010 is available. This latest release delivers substantial increases in performance and enhanced productivity, thereby significantly improving user experience, and expanding solver support.

Performance
Patran 2010 now provides 64-bit platform support for Windows and Linux providing analysts with the ability to access, create, and manipulate dramatically larger models (demonstrated with 20X larger and more complex models). Models that were impossible before due to size and memory limitations are now routine with 64-bit Patran 2010. Customers have seen typical speed improvements of approximately 15% in importing and meshing large models and huge performance improvements for models that taxed the limits of 32-bit systems previously.

"In benchmark testing using 64-bit hardware we were able to create and manipulate a 53 million element solid model. The Patran infrastructure is ready to handle extremely large models and with continued development, our aim is to process models in the billion degree of freedom size range," said Sanjay Choudhry, VP Product and Release Management at MSC.Software.

Usability
The Windows version of the Patran 2010 release provides a new, modernized user interface for increased productivity. Users will see a fresh and improved appearance to the menus through a familiar Windows and Office ribbon structure making menu items easily accessible with less mouse travel. Along with improved ribbon menus comes expanded right mouse button menu control. These changes significantly decrease the learning curve for new users, while giving existing users quicker access to Patran's rich pre and post processing functions. These significant interface improvements are only the start of even greater productivity enhancements to come in future releases.

"The 64-bit version has made a big leap in terms of generating large size models and visualization. It is also very easy to teach new users to use this software. The icons are logically located, and the methodology to generate a full working model is very easy," said George Wong, Senior Structural Analyst, BAE Systems.

Broader Range of Real World Behaviors
Extended solver support delivered in this release enables analysts to setup and run a full range of physics based event simulations including advanced contact, composites, rotordynamics, external acoustics, multi-physics, and more. Engineers can study more real world behaviors than previous releases by accessing more of MD Nastran's comprehensive, integrated capabilities while continuing to integrate with 3rd party solvers.

"It's thrilling to see the excitement level within the engineering community about Patran 2010. This new release immediately helps our customers speed simulation times so they can get answers faster. The interface enhancements provide significant productivity gains thereby enabling users to focus more on product innovation and less time on mundane tasks in the software," said Dominic Gallello, President & CEO of MSC.Software.