PCI: A PATRAN-NASTRAN model translator

The amount of programming required to develop a PATRAN-NASTRAN translator was surprisingly small. The approach taken produced a highly flexible translator comparable with the PATNAS translator and superior to the PATCOS translator. The coding required varied from around ten lines for a shell element to around thirty for a bar element, and the time required to add a feature to the program is typically less than an hour. The use of a lookup table for element names makes the translator also applicable to other versions of NASTRAN. The saving in time as a result of using PDA's Gateway utilities was considerable. During the writing of the program it became apparent that, with a somewhat more complex structure, it would be possible to extend the element data file to contain all data required to define the translation from PATRAN to NASTRAN by mapping of data between formats. Similar data files on property, material and grid formats would produce a completely universal translator from PATRAN to any FEA program, or indeed any CAE system.