The pyNastran software interfaces to Nastran's complicated input and output files and provides a simplified interface to read/edit/write the various files.

The BDF reader/editor/writer supports about 210 cards including coordinate systems. Card objects have methods to access data such as Mass, Area, etc. The BDF writer writes a small field formatted file, but makes full use of the 8-character Nastran field. The OpenMDAO BDF parametrization syntax is also supported.

The OP2 reader supports static/transient/frequency results, which unless analyzing random responses this won't be a problem. It also supports F06 Writing for most of the objects. Results include: displacement, velocity, acceleration, temperature, eigenvectors, eigenvalues, SPC forces, MPC forces, grid point forces, load vectors, applied loads, strain energy, as well as stress and strain.

The F06 reader works for simple problems, but it's still preliminary. At this point, you should just use the OP2 reader. It's faster, more robust, and supports more results. The F06 reader is more used as a verification tool for the OP2 reader.

The Cython OP4 reader supports ASCII and binary dense matrices. The Python OP4 reader supports ASCII and binary sparse and dense matrices.