When milliseconds decide structural survival.
MSC Dytran solves the extreme end of structural mechanics: bird strikes, explosions, underwater shock, penetration and crashworthiness. Three physics formulations — Lagrangian, Eulerian and ALE — in one solver, with native fluid-structure coupling that lets your model survive what reality throws at it.
How Dytran Resolves Shockwave Propagation
MSC Dytran tracks blast overpressure and stress waves through your structure at every explicit time step — capturing the physics that implicit solvers cannot.
MSC Dytran is Cadence’s explicit transient dynamic FEA solver — purpose-built for the class of engineering problems where events unfold in milliseconds and the physics involve extreme deformation, material failure, shock waves and fluid-structure coupling.
Where implicit solvers like MSC Nastran excel at static and low-frequency dynamic problems, Dytran takes over when time steps must be measured in microseconds: a bird hitting a jet engine fan, a blast wave loading a vehicle hull, a warhead penetrating armour plate, or an airbag inflating in 25 milliseconds.
Dytran uses the same input deck format as MSC Nastran, making it the natural explicit companion for existing Nastran users — no new pre-processor, no new material library, minimal retraining. See our Nastran vs Dytran guide for a full side-by-side comparison of when to use which solver.
- Explicit time integration — stable for all short-duration, high-energy events
- Lagrangian (structural), Eulerian (fluids/gases) and ALE formulations
- Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) for extreme fragmentation
- Native fluid-structure interaction (FSI) — no co-simulation needed
- Full material failure, erosion and fragmentation modelling
- FAA-accepted for bird strike and hail impact certification
- Nastran-compatible input deck — same bulk data format
- Tight MSC Nastran coupling for loads hand-off to implicit analysis
Key Facts
| Developer | Cadence (MSC Software) |
| Analysis type | Explicit transient dynamics |
| Formulations | Lagrangian, Eulerian, ALE, SPH |
| Time integration | Central difference (explicit) |
| Time step | 0.05 – 0.5 μs (CFL condition) |
| Input format | MSC Nastran bulk data compatible |
| Certification | FAA-accepted for bird strike analysis |
| Licensing | MSC One token-based |
See Dytran in Action
We can demonstrate Dytran on impact and blast scenarios relevant to your industry — including bird strike, underwater shock or crash.
Built for the Physics That Implicit Solvers Cannot Handle.
Trusted by aerospace, defence and automotive teams for the most demanding transient events.
Every high-energy transient event your structure might face — solved in one explicit environment.
High-Velocity Impact
Bird strike, hail, debris and fragment impact analysis. Captures wave propagation, local perforation and global structural response. FAA-accepted workflows for fan blade containment and windshield certification. Full material failure and erosion.
Blast & Explosion
TNT, VBIED and shaped-charge detonation modelled via Eulerian gas dynamics. Blast overpressure wave loads coupled to surrounding Lagrangian structure via ALE. Predict panel deformation, joint failure and progressive collapse under blast loading.
Crashworthiness
Full-vehicle and component-level crash simulation. Controlled fold sequences, energy absorption zones, occupant load paths. Works alongside Adams for occupant dynamics and CAEfatigue for post-crash fatigue. Covers NCAP, IIHS and FMVSS standards.
Underwater Shock (UNDEX)
Coupled acoustic-structural simulation for subsea explosion and shock loading of ships, submarines and offshore structures. Cavitation, bulk cavitation and hull whipping captured via Doubly Asymptotic Approximation (DAA) boundary conditions.
Penetration & Ballistics
Hydrodynamic penetration of projectiles into armour plate, soil and concrete. SPH and Eulerian formulations handle extreme material distortion without mesh tangling. Residual velocity, ballistic limit and behind-armour debris prediction.
Airbag & Fluid Inflation
Airbag deployment from folded state to full inflation in under 30 ms. Compressible gas dynamics via Euler control volume or uniform pressure method. Interaction with occupant models. Also covers pressure vessel burst and containment systems.
Dytran and MSC Nastran are complementary, not competing. Each owns a distinct region of the simulation space.
| Aspect | Implicit (MSC Nastran) | Explicit (MSC Dytran) |
| Ideal event duration | Seconds to steady-state | Microseconds to 200 ms |
| Time step size | Large — unconditionally stable | Very small — CFL-limited (0.05 μs) |
| Contact & impact | Challenging, convergence issues | Excellent — native explicit contact |
| Material failure & erosion | Not available | Full fracture, erosion, fragmentation |
| Fluid-structure coupling | Requires co-simulation | Native ALE — no co-simulation needed |
| Blast & shock loading | Not suitable | Designed for it |
| Large static deflection | Efficient | Thousands of time steps required |
| Nastran compatibility | Native | Compatible bulk data format |
Many workflows use both: Dytran computes the impact event and passes resulting loads and deformed geometry to Nastran for subsequent fatigue or static structural assessment.
From your CAD model to a validated explicit simulation — in four steps.
Import from Patran, MSC Apex or any major pre-processor. Lagrangian mesh for the structure; Eulerian grid for air, gas or fluid; ALE interface between them.
Assign material models from the built-in library (metals, composites, explosives, soils). Define initial conditions, blast source or impact velocity.
Dytran marches forward in time at the stable CFL time step. The solver is parallelised — large models distribute across cores with near-linear scaling.
Review stress, deformation and energy in MSC Apex or Patran. Export peak loads to Nastran for fatigue or static assessment with CAEfatigue.
Any industry where structures face sudden, violent loading relies on explicit FEA.
Dytran plugs into the Cadence MSC ecosystem and accepts models from all major pre-processors.
MSC Dytran shares the bulk data input format with MSC Nastran, allowing analysts familiar with Nastran cards to run Dytran analyses with minimal retraining. Results can be read directly by Patran, MSC Apex and all standard post-processors supporting OP2 and XDB output formats.
Your structure will face an extreme event. Know what happens before it does.
Book a live demonstration — we’ll run Dytran on an impact or blast scenario relevant to your application.
Frequently Asked Questions
MSC Dytran is an explicit transient dynamic FEA solver used for extreme, short-duration events such as bird strikes, blast loading, underwater shock, penetration and crashworthiness — problems that unfold in milliseconds.
MSC Nastran is an implicit solver, well suited to static and low-frequency dynamic problems. MSC Dytran is an explicit solver for events measured in microseconds, such as impact, blast and crash, where implicit methods are not appropriate.
No — MSC Dytran uses the same input deck format as MSC Nastran, so existing Nastran users can move to explicit analysis without a new pre-processor or material library.
Dytran supports Lagrangian (structural), Eulerian (fluids/gases) and ALE formulations, plus Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) for extreme fragmentation, with native fluid-structure interaction.
Yes — MSC Dytran is FAA-accepted for bird strike and hail impact certification analysis.