SANTA ANA, CA -- MSC.Software Corp. (NYSE:MNS), a leading global provider of simulation software, services and systems reported today that government researchers used simulation software tools MSC.Dytran and MSC.Marc to simulate and understand the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings. On March 6, 2002, Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, testified before the Committee on Science of the U.S. House of Representatives regarding his investigation of the WTC collapsed structures. His testimony included a series of simulations, developed in conjunction with MSC.Software using MSC.Dytran, of a 747 jetliner crashing into a steel structure. "The tragic events of 9/11 prompted us all to ask what we could do to help," said Frank Perna, chairman and chief executive officer of MSC.Software. "MSC.Software has a long history of working with researchers and governmental entities around the world to recreate complex engineering problems, including those dealing with forensics, in the hope of preventing tragedies like the World Trade Center collapse in the future. We are proud to have played a small part in the efforts up to this point and hope more governmental agencies will take up our offer to provide our software and services free of charge to any government entity investigating the attacks." "Understanding how and why the World Trade Center buildings collapsed will help us prevent this type of building collapse in the future," said Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, PhD, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, who testified before the committee. "To simulate the very complex issues and non-linearities involved in analyzing the impact of an airplane and the ensuing fire you need the most powerful and advanced software, such as MSC.Software's simulation tools. The contributions of MSC.Software to our research program have been invaluable. We will continue to use these tools in our investigation to gain insight to what might have caused collapse and to learn valuable lessons that can be applied in the future to prevent such catastrophic collapses." MSC.Dytran helps engineers predict how structures respond to real-world, high-speed events such as crashes. Typical applications include airbag deployment and occupant interaction in vehicle crashes, sheet metal forming, bird strikes on aircraft, explosive containment within aircraft structures, ship collision and grounding, projectile impact and penetration, drop tests, sheet metal forging and fluid-sloshing effects on structures. MSC.Marc is a nonlinear analysis tool for advanced engineering simulation. It can be used to simulate temperature effects such as during fires. For more information visit www.mscsoftware.com.