Open and Import Femap with NX Nastran BDF file from Matlab

Hi,

I think the title summarizes it. The problem is a bit more complex then this but I'm going step by step and the first step is this.

1. From Matlab launch Femap with NX Nastran
2. Open and import a BDF file

Eventually I will also have to do this afterwords:

3. Femap runs and analysis the BDF
4. Outputs a TXT type file
5. Matlab reads/accesses this TXT file

This is basically the algorithm but I'm having a hard time putting it into paper because I never worked with app functions.

Can anyone help? I saw a Catia topic which was somehow similar but couldn't adapt it to my problem.

Thanks

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

For (1), try system().

For (2), it depends on the format. You might be able to use dlmread(), csvread(), fgetl(), textscan(), fread(), importdata(), or readtable() depending on the format of the data. You can attach a file with the paperclip if you can't get any of those to work with it.

For (4), use fopen() then fprintf(), then fclose().

For (5), same answer as (2).

Answer 2

[Valter]

Hi many thanks.

After checking your reply....

For (2) I cannot import BDF (text file format) into Femap with any of your suggestions. For that I'm trying to use now actxserver with the API commands from Femap maybe not the best option what do you think?

File attached

[Image Analyst]

This should have been a comment, not an "Answer" to your original question. Anyway, I thought you meant to import into MATLAB. I'm not familiar with your Femap program at all - I've never heard of Femap or BDF format files. Sorry but I can't help on that program. Perhaps you can use ActiveX or the Java robot class to send commands to the program if you need to control it from MATLAB.

[Valter]

Ok well thanks anyway for trying. Hopefully someone else can help me out. Let's hope someone else answers back.