22/05/2021 NASGRO® Software Overview | Southwest Research Institute

Advanced science.  Applied technology. Search 

NASGRO® SOFTWARE OVERVIEW

Home (/) ›› Industries ›› Chemistry & Materials (/industry/chemical-materials)

›› Materials (/industries/materials) ›› Mechanics & Materials (/industries/mechanics-materials)
›› NASGRO® Fracture Mechanics & Fatigue Crack Growth Software (/consortia/nasgro)
›› NASGRO® Software Overview

NASGRO®
Software Overview (/nasgro-software-overview)

What's New? (/whats-new-nasgro)

Licensing (/nasgro-licensing)

Training (/nasgro-training)

Consortium Information (/nasgro-consortium-information)

Mailing List (https://member-nasgro.swri.org/user/register)

Secure Portal (https://member-nasgro.swri.org)

Bug Report (https://member-nasgro.swri.org/node/add/bugreport)

Feedback (https://member-nasgro.swri.org/node/add/feedback)

Home (/consortia/nasgro)

History. NASA/FLAGRO was originally developed at the NASA Johnson Space Center in the early
1980s to perform fracture control for manned space programs. The name was changed to
NASGRO with the release of version 3 in 1999. Southwest Research Institute and NASA have been
jointly developing NASGRO since version 4 in 2001.

Di erent Modules. NASGRO is actually a suite of di erent computer programs for di erent types
of fatigue and fracture mechanics analysis:

NASFLA (the main module) calculates fatigue crack growth lifetimes

NASSIF calculates stress intensity factors from a library of solutions
NASCCS calculates critical crack size at failure, or threshold crack size for no growth
NASGLS calculates time-dependent crack growth in glass-like materials
NASMAT ts fatigue crack growth and fracture toughness equations to test data
NASFORM calculates crack formation lifetime using stress-life or strain-life methods
NASBEM calculates stress intensity factors for 2D bodies using the boundary element
method

All of these modules have user-friendly graphical interfaces to facilitate data entry and results
visualization.
https://www.swri.org/nasgro-software-overview 1/3
22/05/2021 NASGRO® Software Overview | Southwest Research Institute

Stress Intensity Factors. The stress intensity factor (K) library is one of the greatest strengths of
NASGRO. NASGRO has over 95 di erent K solutions for cracks in plates, lugs, cylinders, spheres,
fasteners, sti ened panels, and structural sections, plus cracks at holes, notches, or cutouts. Most
of these solutions are exclusive to NASGRO. Some K solutions are formulated for remote tension,
bending, pin, and/or pressure loading, while more than 30 other solutions employ a weight
function formulation for arbitrary stress distributions (univariant or bivariant) on the crack plane
in the corresponding uncracked body. Most of the weight function solutions allow residual
stresses or localized yielding to be included in the model. Users can input their own K solutions
through tables, and they can include compounding factors with nearly all of the library solutions.
A complete listing of all the K solutions is available here (/sites/default/ les/industries/k-solutions-
nasgro-manual.pdf).

Material Properties. NASGRO also includes a large library of material properties. FCG and
fracture toughness properties are available for nearly 500 di erent metallic materials. A complete
listing of all these materials is available here (/sites/default/ les/industries/nasgro-materials.pdf).
The NASMAT module contains the original FCG data that supports all of these properties,
including 3000 sets of FCG data and 6000 toughness values. NASMAT can also be used to t FCG
equations to user data, or to re- t NASGRO data. Material properties and crack analyses can be
expressed in US units or several di erent metric unit systems.

Models for Crack Growth and Failure. The NASGRO 4 FCG equation is a comprehensive model
that includes the e ects of stress ratio on FCG rate; the e ects of crack size, stress ratio, and
fanning on threshold; and the e ects of constraint on toughness. Properties can be described as
functions of temperature. Users can also select a Walker equation or enter FCG rate data directly
in tabular form. Several di erent load interaction models are available including three Willenborg
models and two crack closure models, including a detailed strip yield model. NASGRO
automatically performs crack transitioning from one crack model to another as the crack reaches
geometry boundaries. Several di erent failure criteria are available, including toughness, net
section yield, plastic limit load, the Failure Assessment Diagram, residual strength, HCF threshold,
and environmental cracking threshold. Inverse modes allow calculation of initial crack size or
stress scale factors for a speci ed FCG life.

Load Histories. A variety of exible options are available to enter load histories, including several
di erent le formats. Complex load histories can easily be built up from di erent sources. Many
options are available for load spectrum visualization and editing.

User Manual. A comprehensive user manual in PDF form describes NASGRO features, including
many appendixes with technical details about K solutions, net section stress solutions, crack
transitioning, failure assessment diagrams, and much more.

Operating System and Hardware Requirements. NASGRO has been successfully installed and
tested on a variety of di erent Windows operating systems.  Current development and testing
activity is focused on Windows 10 implementations.  NASGRO requires installation on a 64-bit
Windows operating system with at least 4GB of RAM to execute.  NASGRO requires approximately
500MB of disk space for NASGRO program and data le installation.  NASGRO Consortium
members and site licensees may install NASGRO in a server environment.  Disk space
requirements are a function of user data les (e.g. load spectrum les) and program output les
(dependent on user-selected frequency of writing output to le).  For graphics display, a minimum
vertical screen resolution of 800 pixels is needed; for example, a resolution of 1280x800 (width x

https://www.swri.org/nasgro-software-overview 2/3
22/05/2021 NASGRO® Software Overview | Southwest Research Institute

height) is su cient.  A main display setting of 100% is also recommended. Complete details

regarding the NASGRO installation process and system requirements are available here
(/sites/default/ les/nasgro-installation.pdf).

CONTACT US (/user/751/contact?path=/nasgro-software-overview&page=Tk

Or call +1 210 522 3323. (tel:+1 210 522 2353)

HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?

✉ NASGRO

SERVICES-CONTACT-FORM?CSID=9626&URL=NASGRO-SOFTWARE-OVERVIEW)
(/CONTENT/CLIENT-

 +1 210 522 3323 (tel:1 210 522 3323)

     
CONTACT US (/CONTACT-US) TRAINING (/EVENTS)

DIRECTORY (/PROFESSIONAL-TECHNICAL-STAFF-DIRECTORY/START)

PRIVACY (/CONTENT/PRIVACY)

© 2021 Southwest Research Institute. All rights reserved.

欢迎 (/node/10591) Bienvenue (/node/10606) Willkommen (/node/10596) ようこそ

(/node/10586) Bienvenidos (/node/10601)

https://www.swri.org/nasgro-software-overview 3/3