ALGOR Announces ALG/NASTRAN for Industry-Standard Compatibility.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 26, 2003

ALGOR, Inc., a leading maker of software for mechanical engineers, announced the release of ALG/NASTRAN, a new NASTRAN product that was developed to provide full compatibility with existing NASTRAN input and output files so that existing NASTRAN and/or FEMAP users can benefit from ALGOR's value-added capabilities.

Companies using NASTRAN and/or FEMAP can now benefit from ALGOR's easy-to-use interface, full CAD/CAE associativity with leading CAD solid modelers, automatic brick and tetrahedral solid meshing and complementary analysis tools such as Mechanical Event Simulation (MES) for combined motion and stress analysis and fluid flow analysis.

"Our new and easy-to-use NASTRAN tools provide capabilities that existing NASTRAN users have been requesting such as a more modern and easy-to-use interface and CAD associativity with leading solid modelers," said ALGOR product manager, Bob Williams. "These tools can be easily implemented to increase the efficiency and productivity of engineers who have come to rely on a NASTRAN solution. ALGOR is pleased to offer a broad range of affordable and feature-rich modeling and analysis options to the NASTRAN and FEMAP user community."

"ALGOR's new NASTRAN products will improve our existing product development process because they enable us to work with existing NASTRAN files within an easy-to-use FEA environment with extensive results evaluation and presentation capabilities," said Dominic Lorino of Huber, Inc. "These tools make it possible for us to work with our legacy NASTRAN files within the same familiar interface that we use when performing design and analysis with ALGOR."

ALG/NASTRAN is a complete NASTRAN solution for static stress with linear material models, steady-state heat transfer and natural frequency (modal) analyses. ALGOR's NASTRAN product line also includes FEMPRO for NASTRAN, a FEMAP-alternative finite element modeling, results evaluation and presentation interface for third-party NASTRAN processors; and a series of NASTRAN-compatible extenders that enable ALGOR customers to add these new capabilities to their existing software.

ALG/NASTRAN provides the following requested enhancements to NASTRAN and FEMAP users:

-- capability to import FEA models that are stored in a NASTRAN

(.bdf, .dat, .nas) file

-- InCAD technology for direct CAD/CAE data exchange with

Autodesk Inventor, CADKEY, Mechanical Desktop, Pro/ENGINEER,

Solid Edge and SolidWorks and CAD support for Alibre Design

and Rhinoceros or universal files including ACIS, IGES, STEP

and STL

-- full associativity with each design change for Autodesk

Inventor, Pro/ENGINEER, Solid Edge and SolidWorks

-- a suite of modeling tools including midplane meshing,

automatic brick and tetrahedral solid meshing, structured

meshing tools for beam and plate elements and Alibre Design

Basic, a parametric, feature-based modeling system for

creating 3-D solid models of parts and assemblies

-- docking toolbars, multiple view windows, a tree view of model

parts and associated data, Windows-native data input screens

with real-time data checking for reasonable input and

right-click functionality for applying, modifying and deleting

loads, constraints and FEA properties

-- extensibility to all of ALGOR's analysis capabilities,

including MES with linear and nonlinear material models,

linear dynamics, transient heat transfer, steady and unsteady

fluid flow, electrostatics, full multiphysics and piping

design and analysis

-- a built-in graphics environment that features fast dynamic

viewing controls and customization options including

user-defined color palettes, annotations and options so that

all analysis results can be displayed graphically as contours

or plots, output as images, animated and presented in text or

HTML reports

-- complete data exchange with third-party software, such as

acoustics and fatigue applications, through industry-standard

NASTRAN files (.bdf, .dat, .nas, .op2) by writing input deck

data and binary output files that are NASTRAN compatible

For more information about ALGOR's NASTRAN products, contact ALGOR or visit www.ALGOR.com/NASTRAN.

ALGOR makes computer software and provides services for mechanical and civil engineers. The company serves over 20,000 engineers in over 60 countries in organizations such as DuPont, General Motors, Goodyear, Hewlett-Packard, NASA, Naval Surface Warfare Center and Yale University. Partnerships with other leading mechanical engineering software companies offer data interchange with products from Alibre, Inc.; ANSYS, Inc. (Nasdaq:ANSS); Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADSK); CADKEY Corporation; MSC.Software Corporation (NYSE:MNS); Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC); Robert McNeel & Associates; Structural Dynamics Research Corporation; Solid Edge, EDS-PLM Solutions (NYSE:EDS); SolidWorks Corporation, a Dassault Systemes S.A. (Nasdaq:DASTY) company; and others. Educational support and customer service include the use of Internet audio/video technology for distance learning and free, live software demonstrations.

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