Back to the catalog
Spinoff story
Model 222 Helicopter Using NASTRAN
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
Model 222 helicopter is one of family of commercial military aircraft built by Bell Helicopter. They use NASTRAN to analyze loads on all airframes and rotor systems. NASTRAN analysis has provided a five percent savings in airframe structure weight in addition to saving development time. Under previous methods Bell needed 4,550 man-hours to analyze five load conditions per helicopter with NASTRAN; only 1,675 man-hours are required for 36 load conditions per helicopter.