Nuts and Bolts

The T45TS job was still progressing and we had direction from McDonnell Douglas that we should be developing our internal loads, for classical analysis and airframe reactions, from flexible FEA "stick" models.

I think their recommended analysis software was Nastran, but APPH was not going to shell out $10,000 or more for a piece of software, especially as we already had the ASAS FE code system from Atkins and the expensive translation software to port in and out of Patran.

I was sent to Atkins for a few sessions with their consultants and we fathomed a method to create a landing gear stick model from their BM3D elements and the occasional shear plate. It was interesting stuff compared with our old method of hand stitching BASIC code into a logic bomb.

It was during that time that NAFEMS was introduced and it seemed a good source for the developing FEA community, so APPH joined and we started receiving useful information from them.

The initial excitement of the stick model concept was soon to be replaced with many weeks of frustration as I wrestled with releases, instability and a benchmark against one of those logic bombs that could never be correct due to p-delta effects.

It was June, 1985 and I would still be working on those T45TS models, in some form, in July, 1986