Nastran

Nastran, short for NAsa STRuctural ANalysis, is a general purpose finite element analysis computer program intended to solve a range of engineering problems. Finite element analysis (FEA) allows engineers to characterize structures when simple equations (i.e. first principles) are unsuitable due to configuration complexity. All modern aircraft programs employ FEA, but a large number of these use Nastran specifically.

Nastran is a solver, packaged as an executable. The user creates text based input files, usually with the assistance of a preprocessor like Femap, Simcenter 3D, Patran, or Apex. The text inputs file are interpreted and processed by the solver. Results are delivered in a variety of formats but generally available as text based output files as well. In most cases, the results are read into the same program used to create the input file for postprocessing purposes.

Nastran dates back to the 1960s and carries a history as rich as its user manuals are dense. Some history of Nastran can be found in NASA-CP-2249, the proceedings of the 10th Nastran User’s Colloquium, and specifically the paper Operating in the Age of Nastran by Thomas Butler. The author is not aware of any Nastran conferences that continue to this day, however, Nastran is still a focus of industry interest and is regularly discussed in other modern conference settings.

Learning Nastran is usually only possible with on the job experience and collaboration or mentorship with those with prior experience. This is typically how the aerospace industry passes knowledge of this tool across generations. Nastran is perhaps most commonly used by structural engineering specialists called stress engineers, though many other types of engineers find use as well, including those in the loads and dynamics discipline.

Several companies offer codes with the Nastran label. These are sometimes similar under the hood, as with Simcenter and MSC Nastran, but they could also be quite different, as with Autodesk Nastran of NEi heritage or earlier versions of the code such as Nastran-95.