Exporting to PATRAN

Exporting to 3rd party CAE formats requires that you have purchased the correct licenses. Refer to the Minimum license requirements page to find out if you can perform this operation.

To run the mpi2pat.vbs macro:

1. Open the Midplane or 3D study with Fill+Pack results, with or without fiber orientation.
   Note: Dual Domain models will be rejected as these cannot be taken into PATRAN for structural analysis.
2. Click View tab > Windows panel > User Interface and then select Command Line.
3. Type mpi2pat and click Go. The script will first prompt for an output filename.
   Note: To ensure that PATRAN will not have any difficulty reading the files generated by this interface, use only alphanumeric characters and underscores in the filename. In particular, you should avoid using parentheses: "(", ")".
4. Accept the default output filename or enter an alternate name, and then click OK.
5. Click OK to confirm the message informing you of the name of the output folder. The script creates a folder of this name under the project directory of the study being exported, and then launches an executable in a DOS window to generate the PATRAN input files.
   Note: If a Windows Security Alert window appears, click Unblock to allow the executable to run.
6. Click OK to confirm the message that the export is complete.

The API script saves the interface files in a folder created within the current project folder. For example, My Documents\My AMI 20xx Projects\Project1\<study_name>_interface_files, where xxxx is the software release number and <study_name> is the name of the study you are exporting to PATRAN.

Once the files are in that location, you can use them in PATRAN. Refer to your PATRAN manual for instructions on how to import them.