Patran vs. Hypermesh (Ansys user inquiry) 1

[Stringmaker]

I'm looking for honest, objective feedback on the two. I'm a very experienced Ansys user and have some experience with Hypermesh but wouldn't label myself as highly proficient yet. I have very little Patran experience. I'm going to be working with Nastran more frequently and need to get versed in a tool that handles it. Here are my observations:

- I can't believe Patran does not have any sort of dynamic pan or zoom. Having to click an icon first is quite annoying for someone who doesn't use a spaceball.
- Hypermesh seems to work similar to Patran the way the interface is setup and in general requires fewer clicks and has fewer popup boxes.
- Hypermesh is great for creating 2D models but lacking for 3D meshing.
- Patran seems that it's a more viable 3D mesher which is of primary importance to me.

Feedback and "your take" of one or the other...or both is welcomed. Thanks in advance!

-Brian

 

[gurmeet2003]

ABAQUS CAE combines ease of use with capability. However it may not offer best control in meshing. Hypermesh and FEMAP both have an outdated user interface and a steep learning curve. I have no experience with PATRAN, but have been told that it has fallen behind other pre-post processors due to lack of development effort and has lost lot of users.

Gurmeet

 

[LewisRK]

Compared to HyperMesh, I find Patran incredibly cumbersome and tiresome to use. Patran never seems to update any changes, you have to click many times to update your chnages. Here are some examples:

Create an element - Doesn't add it to the screen unless you move model a bit.

Colour elements by property - Create a new element and it turns black. You have to go back to Properties and select to colour elements by properties again.

Create groups by properties - Again, change the property of an element or create a new one and it won't fit into the respective group.

I find the entire train-of-thought behind Patran a bit back-to-front and non-intuitive:
It will allow you to inadvertantly create a 3-node CQUAD4 and a 2-node CTRIA3 even though Nastran won't run it.

Move an element and it deletes the old one and creates a new one... divorcing it from its original element property. TO preserve the property of an element when you move/duplicate it, you have to use Groups but that's a faff. You want to move or duplicate an RBE2 or RBE3? You can't. You have to put it in a group again.

I think that some people don't take HyperMesh seriously because of it's use of a superlative in its name and its somewhat Fisher Price look but it so so powerful, fast and logical.

 

[fpelizza]

Hi all,
I've used Patran (with MSC Nastran) for almost ten years, and considered it the best pre-post ever (not as good as hypermesh for 2D meshing, but better for anything else).
I went for FEMAP (with NX Nastran) for economical reasons (it costs half than Patran) very sad for leaving a part of my engineering life. Well I found out that FEMAP is really a good choice.
-First of all is easy to use, if you have to begin with Patran or Femap the latter will need half of the time to learn.
-It's very easy to be customized. You can write easily macros or APIs or making external programs running inside FEMAP. If anybody ever tried to write PATRAN pcl know what I mean. In Patran you have the Utilities and that is it if you don't want to waste your time learning a language which will die with the software. And a lot of Bugs! Never had a version of Patran which did not have a bug or some problems in picking.
Femap is getting better every version. While Patran ten years ago was almost the same as it is now (except for panning and zooming and double coloured background) Femap makes significant changes every version, and for grouping and picking in my opinion is already ahead (what about groups which autoupdate following rules, or cut & paste in picking) etc. It has a lot of visualization options and since V10 has new mesh options. To be short for the use I make of it (3D modelling and 2D modelling with composite materials, models between 1E4 and 5E5 grids) I would today go for Femap even for an higher price than Patran. If somebody tried Femap years ago I suggest to do it again because it changed and it's changing a lot.
Hope this helps
regards
Francesco

Francesco

http://www.ams-italia.it

 

[kellnerp]

When I want a 3D hex mesh in FEMAP I split the geometry in SolidWorks and then just concern myself with meshing in FEMAP.

TOP
CSWP
BSSE

http://www.engtran.com

http://www.niswug.org

"Node news is good news."

 

[trainguy]

kellnerp

How do you arrange for your meshes to match at "split" interfaces?

tg

 

[kellnerp]

That's the trick. You have to pick the two adjacent faces and get them to map to each other. I don't have FEMAP in front of me anymore.

TOP
CSWP
BSSE

http://www.engtran.com

http://www.niswug.org

"Node news is good news."