NASA Spawns NASTRAN, Its Greatest Computational Success

The project to develop a general-purpose finite element structural analysis system was conceived in the midst of this rapid expansion of finite element research in the 1960s. The development, and subsequent management, enhancement, and distribution, of the NASA Structural Analysis System, or NASTRAN, unquestionably constitutes NASA’s great­est single contribution to computerized structural analysis—and argu­ably the single most influential contribution to the field from any source. NASTRAN is the workhorse of structural analysis: there may be more advanced programs in use for certain applications or in certain proprie­tary or research environments, but NASTRAN is the most capable general – purpose, generally available, program for structural analysis in existence today, even more than 40 years after it was introduced.