Is it possible to do FEA with little expereince?

[Anonymous]

Is it possible to do finite element analysis with Algor mechanical event simulation software if you have a good working knowlege of the application but no practical working knowlege of FEA? I personally would be doing the computer simulations. I dont have an engineering background, but I would be working with a very experienced engineer, but he has no FEA experience.

Based on what I have read so far, this is mainly what is needed to perform the analysis.

1. An accurate CAD model of the element to be analysed.

2. Reliable material properties of the product element (like the types of steel used, loads, temperatures, bending, twisting, stretching, squashing...ext.)

3. Someone with Engineering experience to know where to correctly apply the loads and some boundary experience.

4. A math solver (which I belive is the ALGOR software).

I'm sure it all depends on the complexity, but is it possible to do this with no FEA experience?

Thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

If you have FEA experience, but no engineering background, and he has an engineering background, but no FEA experience I don't think it should be a problem. Of course, that is presuming you can communicate your intent to eachother well enough. 🙂

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I don't have FEA experience. My job would be to learn the Algor MES application and "in therory" the engineer would give me the loads to insert into the application. I really dont know whats involved. Any insight would help.

Thanks! 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I wouldn't start working on something immediately, but take a little time to get to know the general idea behind FEA (elements, nodes, boundary conditions) and what is really happening when you create a model and apply boundary conditions. As you may know, what is really happening in FEA is the solving of equation systems, linear or non-linearly. You don't need to know the details of everything, but I think it might be hard to use it effectively if you don't have a general idea of what is going on.

There's more to FEA than simply applying loads and boundary conditions, especially considering mesh properties, element types and numerical problems.

I would suggest that you take some time to learn the basics at first. And if you need help, there's always this forum. 🙂

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Okay great, so it is possible. I am going to be looking in to this more this weekend. I will focus on what you outlined.

Thank you so much for your valuable insight!