Speaker 1: So MSC Nastran is, if you like, the, the granddaddy of finite element packages. So the, the finite element technique has been around for a really long time, but the first computerization of it was done for NASA in the 1960s as part of the Apollo program. So they realized quite quickly that you can't simulate the behavior of a structure in space on the ground because we have this inconvenient gravity that makes all the test results invalid. So they wanted a way of modeling it. They looked across their departments and everybody was messing around with something different. So they, contracted two gentlemen, Mr. McNeil and Mr. Schwendler, who commercial or produced Nastran as a finite element package for simulating the sort of events that were involved in launching a rocket. And after that was finished, Mr. McNeil and Schwendller formed MSC to produce a commercial version of the software. So it's the, the Nastran stands for the na NASA Structural Analysis package, and it was first released commercially in 1971 and has, was rapidly adopted by other companies that make large capital expensive equipment. So planes, boats, submarines moved into the automotive industry for predicting durability of cars and predicting their, their NVH responses. And then it's just gradually expanded into all sorts of areas in, in defense, in consumer products, all, all sorts of areas. Why would I choose Nastran? And there's, there's a few reasons I'd do it. So the, the primary one is, is peace of mind because they have some very high profile customers who, it would be catastrophic if things went wrong. Planes drop outta the sky, rockets don't reach the moon, that kind of stuff. It's testing is rigorous and its support network in terms of technical support is, is unsurpassed. I've been using Nastran for 30 years. I provide support from, from the BT group here, but I have colleagues at MSC who've got 10, 15 years more than me. There's, there's a massive, massive depth of knowledge behind the product. So you never have to wait for an answer on how do I do X? There's somebody who's been doing it for 20 years sitting ready to answer your question. The other thing that is key for me is, as, a, as like a high level analyst, let's say there's the flexibility of not having to use a GUI all the time to work with it. If, if you are doing, doing repeated activities or you're wanting to do a study on a range of materials, you don't have to open a GUI and do 30 clicks to make another model. You can open the input deck and you can just change two numbers and rerun it. So does that flexibility and post processing out of a file, I can write a Python script to extract all my key results. So if I'm doing a large study, let's say a design of experiments type thing, it's very easy to automate that to, to generate 200 different instances of my model and extract the key results without having to go open that one, change the value, save it, open it, change that value, save it, run them all manually, and then open them to extract a result. I can, automate it with scripting very, very easily. And MSC Nastran can solve problems where there are a billion degrees of freedom and that effort in supporting customers like Rolls-Royce, like Jaguar Landover, like BMW, means that I can run really massive models just on my laptop. Not, I can't run a billion degrees of freedom on my laptop, but I can run several million degrees of freedom. So what's considerable model, the efficiency that's gone into the software means I can run it on, consumer hardware very easily. I mean, there's, there's two reasons why you might use MSC Nastran The, the first and most obvious one is because you have to, So if you take the example of the space industry, if you want to put your satellite on an Ariane Rocket and launch it into space, ESA will insist that you've done your, your certification using Nastran so you have no choice. Well, you have a choice. You can do it using any other package you like and then do it again using Nastran to satisfy ESA That bits won't fall off when you launch it. The other reason less prescriptive reason is flexibility. The ability to solve massive, massive models including things up to a billion degrees of freedom. And frankly, the, the availability of really, really experienced support. So we have support engineer with 30 years experience in the BT group. We offload to MSC as our next level support. They have people with 15 years more experience than that and it expands to Europe worldwide. Massive, massive experience. If, they don't know the answer, there isn't an answer. People Who want to run really, really big models, particularly for dynamics. So this is, this is either time domain dynamics where you're saying, I've, I've got this, I'm modeling my car and I've got a, a signal from the test people of the acceleration at the wheel hub over time, and I want to know what's the stress in their lower control arm. So there's that kind of dynamics, but there's, the more common thing people are using is, is frequency domain dynamics where instead of taking a long time signal, where converting it into, you know, energy is a function of, of frequency and those sort of problems are, are very common for, for large structures for space industry stuff, for vibration type analysis. So getting into things like acoustics, pass by noise for cars. The NVH inside of cars are looking at the, the noise generation from panel vibration, that kind of problem. Putting Aside the companies who are using it because they have to, who generally know what they're doing, a new customer that comes to Nastran because of some new functionality that they need. So something like topography optimization or aero elastics. We work with them there before they buy the software, we will have done a, a proof of concept technology demonstration to, to convince them that we can do what they want to do. And we will hand that over as a documented model. They will get the models, they will get documentation that shows them the steps they've need to take and takes them through their, the validation of it so that they've, they've got that as a reference case that they can come back to. The best way to buy MSC Nastran to access MSC Nastran is through the MSC one token licensing scheme, which as well as giving you the Nastran gives you a raft of other solutions including access to the eLearning that has all of the training material workshops, everything available to you as part of the tokens. Nastran been available in the market for decades. So there's a really, really broad set of capabilities, some of them quite esoteric, but the, the things that people are using it for by and large, so the mainstream type of applications is, is solving very large models, a lot of aerospace stuff. So we have a, a module in there for aero elastics, which is, is co simulating structure with fluid flow to predict the loads in an aircraft structure as it flies. That's been extended by some companies in the motorsport industry to look at aeros elastics of, wings in Formula one cars as well. Optimization is a strong suit for an Nastran There's, there's a lot of optimization people think of is just a topology optimization where you are, you're nibbling away a structure. That's something that Nastran will do, but we also have topography optimization to look at designing sheet metal stampings. We've got general optimization. So you can, you can model a structure and you can adjust all the thicknesses of all the panels in a car to achieve a desired response. So optimization is a really strong area for an astron random response. So the idea of, a loading environment that you don't really understand very well, where you're replacing forces against time with a statistical representation of how much energy goes into the system, at what frequency ranges. So you can, you can make statements about in more general terms about how structural will respond. So if you, if you do a great example for trucks, I once asked for, for durability data for a truck and it came zipped over seven DVDs, which was totally impractical to work with until we converted it into the frequency domain and we were able to run it in a couple of hours in Nastran to make predictions about the durability of the, the structure. So NATRON is CAD agnostic. It interacts with all the de CAD systems through the, the GUI will allow you to import geometry from almost any source imaginable. But a lot of the CAD embedded systems, so most of the major CAD systems have a finite element solution in there. Almost all of them are able to write out a Nastran input deck because it is for historical reasons, the closest we have to a neutral file exchange format for finite element data. Nastran has particular strengths. Most of what it can do can be replicated in other FEA systems. But if you are looking at large models, if you are looking at fast solve times, if you are looking at optimization, if you are looking at adhering to standards in in aerospace, Nastran is probably your best choice.