Review of pre- and postprocessor programs included in the major commercial general purpose finite element packages

Abstract

There is a large number of general purpose finite element computer programs available on the market today. Therefore the choice of which program to use is very difficult. There are too many parameters of objective and subjective characters involved. However, each program has a relative strength or weakness when used for analysis of a certain problem. Which program is most suitable for the user is very much dependent on his working field, hardware available and type of application. For the effective and economic use of a finite element program, effective pre- and postprocessor programs integrated into the finite element system are very important factors. In the evaluation of a finite element program a potential user should be aware of what pre- and postprocessing capabilities are included in this specific program. This paper is concerned with a review of pre- and postprocessor capabilities in some well-known versatile general purpose finite element computer programs. A descriptive and tabular form of these capabilities is given for the programs as follow: ADINA, ANSYS, ASKA, BERSAFE, DIAL, MARC, MSC/NASTRAN, NISA, PAFEC, SAP 6/7, SDRC SUPERB, STRUDL and TITUS.