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Basic FEA Book/Tutorial

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Message 1 of 10
JLeeSaxon
17574 Views, 9 Replies

Basic FEA Book/Tutorial

I purchased Up and Running with Autodesk Inventor Professional 2013 by Wasim Younis and did not find it helpful.

 

This book (as well as all tutorials I've been able to find online) teaches people already familiar with stress analysis about the Inventor interface.

 

I need something that's more about stress analysis itself than Inventor. Something very basic, like explaining the difference between force, pressure, and bearing loads and when to use which.

 

Any recommendations?

 

Thanks

Lee Saxon
Ellis Photographic Design
9 REPLIES 9
Message 2 of 10
JDMather
in reply to: JLeeSaxon

I recommend that you sign up for a class.

 

I am out of my office and can't remember the exact title, but use book by Vince Adams titled something like "Building Better Products......"  A quick amazon search should turn it up.


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Message 3 of 10
henderh
in reply to: JLeeSaxon

Another good reference is called "Finite Element Analysis for Design Engineers" by Paul M. Kurowski

 

Copyright 2004 Society of Automotive Engineers International (SAE)

 

ISBN 0-7680-1140-X

 

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Finite-Element-Analysis-Design-Engineers/dp/076801140X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=...



Hugh Henderson
QA Engineer (Fusion Simulation)
Message 4 of 10
Inv_kaos
in reply to: JLeeSaxon

I also have the book JD suggests, I think it is out of print but you should be able to find it second hand. It is a good introductory book.

 

However based on your comments I wouldn't buy another book on FEA before you buy a book on Statics and Mechanics of Materials. Learn statics, stress analysis and failure theories first, then study the tools for analysing them numerically.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Materials-James-M-Gere/dp/0534934293

 

There is also free information online, such as:

 

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/materials-science-and-engineering/3-11-mechanics-of-materials-fall-1999/

http://www.me.mtu.edu/~mavable/MoM2nd.htm

Please mark as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question or "Kudos" if you found it useful.
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Stew, AICP
Inventor Professional 2013, Autodesk Simulation Multiphysics 2013
Windows 7 x64 Core i7 32GB Ram FX2000
Message 5 of 10
jeff.noel
in reply to: JLeeSaxon

Do you have any Engineering background?  You may want to take some Engineering level classes before diving to deep into Stress Analysis.  Garbage in = Garbage out has never applied more than to FEA, and unless you really know what you are doing, and can do some hand calculations to help back up some of the results you are seeing, I would strongly discourage someone from relying on it to much.

 

The easy part is throwing down constraints and loads.  The tough part is knowing how they should be applied, how to interperet the results, and knowing how to do some calculations yourself, just to spot check the results that the FEA gives you, so you are confident in your results.  I think some formal training will be best here.

 

Message 6 of 10
JDMather
in reply to: jeff.noel


@jeff.noel wrote:

... and can do some hand calculations to help back up some of the results you are seeing,...

 


Do you have an example to back this up?
I hear this all the time, yet in my experience the hand calcs only work on the most basic of problems that we typically use in introductory level.  As soon as I start getting into real world problems it seems impossible to do hand calcs in a reasonably amount of time.

My background is as a machinist, not a mathematician/engineer, but I do have experience in going through multiple software tutorial solutions (Inventor, SolidWorks, Creo, Algor).  I would love for someone to take up this discussion.  The Algor (Autodesk Analysis) university curriculm might be a good starting point.


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Message 7 of 10
Inv_kaos
in reply to: JDMather

JD,

 

What you can check easily, and should really in all simulations, is your reactions. Also you can usually calculate displacements and stresses from conventional calculations for part of your model. If you check your stress away from a discontinuity, or at one with known stress concentration factors, then you can compare this to your FEA model. This then becomes a good indication that the stress at your more complicated locations will also be accurate provided your results have converged. It only has to be a rough check to make sure you are in the ball park. For example in a pressure vessel you might do a quick hoop stress check or calculate the longitudinal bending and pressure stress in a nozzle neck. Beam and plate equations are well documented too, a good reference is Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain and just about anything by Timoshenko. Build up a library of excel templates, it saves time and makes it easier for documenting your work.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Roarks-Formulas-Stress-Strain-8th/dp/0071742476/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid...

http://www.amazon.com/Petersons-Stress-Concentration-Factors-Edition/dp/0471538493/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC...

 

Have a look in Building Better Products with FEA, p348, correlation to closed form equations.

 

Some other references would be NAFEMS, lots of good information there. For a start have a look through the section on Quality Assureance. The paper on V&V mainly concerns convergence since code verification isn't your concern but it is worth reading and is free. Management of Finite Element Analysis - Guidelines to Best Practice would be a recommended read too but is not cheap for non-members (your colledge could probably get membership).

http://www.nafems.org/publications/browse_buy/qa/

 

Off topic but these are all good references available for free:

http://www.nafems.org/resources/knowledgebase/

 

This is another reference about best practice and covers topics discussed. Less comprehensive but free:

http://machinedesign.com/article/a-few-best-practices-for-fea-users-0904

 

Sometimes you can get away with not performing detailed calculations based on previous experince. For example on a lot of the things I do regularly I know what stress range I expect to see before I run the simulation. Your background would definitely count to this type of experience but probably not for your students.

Please mark as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question or "Kudos" if you found it useful.
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Stew, AICP
Inventor Professional 2013, Autodesk Simulation Multiphysics 2013
Windows 7 x64 Core i7 32GB Ram FX2000
Message 8 of 10
stevec781
in reply to: JDMather


@Anonymous wrote:
 As soon as I start getting into real world problems it seems impossible to do hand calcs in a reasonably amount of time.
It wasnt that long ago (early 90's) when just about everything was designed using hand calc's.  Most things were designed manually by simplifying and breaking down to free body diagrams.  Like everything else its easy when you have been properly trained.  Checking results with manual checks is a must.  I scares me to think about how many people are looking at FEA results without even knowing what Von Mises stress is.

FEA is a specialised field and most books dive into matrix math in chapter 1 so finding a basic book might be quite difficult.

 

Message 9 of 10
venicio
in reply to: JLeeSaxon

Message 10 of 10
sunnymarks
in reply to: JLeeSaxon

I agree with you. For Basic FEA : Building Better Products with Finite Element Analysis by Vince Adams is a real good book. You can find it at http://www.amazon.com/Building-Better-Products-Element-Analysis/dp/156690160X

For Advanced FEA Analysis I found this book : Higher-Order Finite Element Methods (Studies in Advanced Mathematics) by Pavel Solin, Karel Segeth and Ivo Dolezel (Jul 28, 2003) that you can find at : http://www.amazon.com/Higher-Order-Element-Methods-Advanced-Mathematics/dp/158488438X/ref=sr_1_2?s=b...

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