The aerospace industry is a multidisciplinary sector that demands the expertise of professionals from various engineering backgrounds. Among them, mechanical engineers play a crucial role, contributing to the design, development, manufacturing, and maintenance of aircraft, spacecraft, and associated systems. Their responsibilities cover a wide range of activities, ensuring that aerospace systems are safe, reliable, and…
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a type of computer program that uses the finite element method to analyze a material or object and find how applied stresses will affect the material or design. FEA can help determine any points of weakness in a design before it is manufactured. FEA programs are more widely available with the spread…
Transient dynamics analysis methods are used to predict the response of structures to dynamic loads. The outputs can include stresses and strains, velocities and accelerations, along with connection and constraint forces, for example. Furthermore, nonlinear transient dynamics can account for large rotations, contact, and material nonlinearities. While these analyses are very important, they often require long run times…
Have you ever noticed that there is an option to change your Bonded contact formulation from Pure Penalty to MPC Bonded? Have you ever wondered what this means? Have you ever wondered when you should use it? If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions you are not alone. The option to use…
Where does stress come from? No, I am not talking about your in-laws deciding move in with you for a few months. I am talking about the stress that you are plotting in those pretty color contour plots for your final report of your static structural finite element analysis for your FEA consulting client. Do you fully understand how those stresses…
(Prior Planning Prevents Particularly Poor Performance) When performing any finite element analysis project it is critical to plan your approach to ensure a success. The most important step is to have clear goals, including your expected results and the format in which these results will be presented. It is also critical to have a reasonable idea of what answers you…
Utilising the new FREE topology optimisation ACT-extension, one can explore new innovative ways to reduce mass that were not available before. The DoE (Design of Experiments) approach may not be feasible if the design’s shape is not yet defined, while creating CAD models to capture all the potential design possibilities may be impossible. Now imagine…
Unless you work for a company designing custom “one-off” products you often find yourself creating a finite element model with similar aspects to models you have worked on previously. In my own distant past I worked for companies that produced tables of products which shared many common attributes in form, function and methods that I used…
Have you needed to run a structural analysis of a design subject to high energy dynamic conditions? These are typically impact or shock simulations such as automobile crash, drop tests of electronic devices, bird strikes on turbine blades, or structures subjected to shock or blast loads. There may be a number of reasons for running these explicit…
A fortune teller may try to predict when a person will die based on the length of the lines in their hand or tea leaves floating in a cup. A good fortune teller will also try to look deeper and combine their observations and experience to refine their prediction. “Let’s see, this guy is smoking a…