In 2008, FE Associates was awarded a SBIR Phase II contract with the Navy to expand upon ARPPAS, developed under the 2006 Phase I contract. Through the Phase II contract, FE Associates, also known as Syncretek LLC, has developed a program that can interchange data between multiple finite element analysis systems. This was demonstrated by a success transfer of Navy-provided model data between Patran and FEMAP in August 2009.

During the second half of the Phase II contract, FE Associates is developing a process to integrate multiple FEA system technology into ARPPAS. FE Associates intends to demonstrate completion of this goal by demonstrating a modification of ARPPAS and its GUI to accommodate analysis in either a Patran or FEMAP environment for test analysis model, by October 2010.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class D. Keith Simmons