FEA Summary

December 17, 2012

FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

The finite element method (FEM) (its practical application often known as finite element analysis (FEA)) is a numerical technique for finding approximate solutions of Partial Differential Equations (PDE) as well as of integral equations. The Finite Element Method is a good choice for solving partial differential equations over complicated domains (like cars and oil pipelines), when the domain changes (as during a solid state reaction with a moving boundary), when the desired precision varies over the entire domain, or when the solution lacks smoothness. For instance, in a frontal crash simulation it is possible to increase prediction accuracy in "important" areas like the front of the car and reduce it in its rear (thus reducing cost of the simulation); another example would be the simulation of the weather pattern on Earth, where it is more important to have accurate predictions over land than over the wide-open sea. Steps of FEM: 1) Pre-Processing 2) Solution 3) Post-Processing Approaches to Solve FEM Problem: 1) Direct Formulation 2) Minimum Total Potential Energy Formulation 3) Weighted Residual Method Analyze the Linear Element Systems 1) Spring elements 2) Bar elements 3) Truss elements Elastic bar element: Formulation of finite element characteristics of elastic bar element is based on the following assumptions: 1. The bar is prismatic. 2. The material obeys Hookes law. 3. Forces are applied at the ends of the bar.

1 Mohsin Siddiqui IM-025 Sec A BE 2007-08

FEA Summary

December 17, 2012

Torsional problem: In solving Torsional problems the parameters are replaced with the angle of twist, torque, and polar moment of inertia. Assumptions for angular link element (truss): 1. Hookes law is applied 2. Prismatic bar 3. Weightless member 4. Nodal forces 5. Axially loaded 6. Buckling effects are not considered 7. Static loading is applied 8. Homogenous material 9. Poissons effects are not considered 10. Isotropic material Modeling Techniques: The basic modeling techniques involved the following 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) Computational time and resources Material characteristics Initial and Boundary Conditions Loading Conditions Fine Mesh and High Gradients Aspect Ratio

Automatic Mesh Generation: It has three basic methods; 1) Tesselation method 2) Octree Method 3) Quadtree Method Convergence of Solution: FE-Model is stiffer than actual model. In general the displacement values are smaller in magnitude than exact values due to limited no. of nodes.

2 Mohsin Siddiqui IM-025 Sec A BE 2007-08