FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

 Simple Problems can be solved by simple equation like equation of equilibrium

 Some times equations becomes complex to be solved by simple methods like (statically
indeterminate)
 What happens to a bridge if a car or a heavy truck drives
across the bridge, what are the stresses

 Whatwill happen to a tall building standing in strong

winds and earthquakes
 FiniteElement method is one technique for
overcoming this problem
 Finiteelement analysis is a way that engineers has
invented to solve structural problems
 Anengineer designing a bridge will need to know
how the proposed structure will behave under load
 Equations for solving structure stresses are available
but for simple shapes like rectangle or triangle
 Butthose equations cant be directly solved for
complicated shapes like bridge
 Here we use FEM to solve a complex structure like
bridge
What we do in FEM
 We replace the complicated shape with equivalent
network of simple elements
 A pattern of element is formed called
finite element mesh
 This pattern is unique for each
new problem
 Accuracy of the problem will depends upon the number of
element we chose to have in a mesh

 More the elements we will have, the smaller the each element will be
and more accurate will be the results
 Unfortunately more elements means more calculations to be done
 So for the reason of economy therefore we look for the happy medium
 Just enough elements to give adequate accuracy within computing time
 This was the first step we do in FEA or FEM
 This is called discretization
 Dividing the object into a number of elements
 ANSYS
Basic steps in Finite element Analysis

Preprocessing Phase
Solution Phase
Post Processing Phase
Preprocessing Phase
 Create or discretize the solution domain into finite
elements, that is subdivide the problem in to nodes and
elements
 Write a mathematical equation for each element or node
 Assemble the equation of all elements to present the
entire problem
 Define the boundary conditions

 This is called Mathematical modeling

Solution Phase
 Solve a set of linear or non linear set of algebraic equations to get
the nodal results I.e. the displacement on nodes

Post processing Phase

 Obtain other important information, like stress or strain
 It is 3 + 1 Credit hour course
 Text book is FEA by saeed Moaveni