Getting FEA up and running

In this third and final installment of guidelines for getting an initial FEA program contributing to the design department, Ted Fryberger, president and instructor of DeepSoft Inc., Columbia, Md. ( ), applies lessons from the first two articles. The enclosure shows internal detail in a relatively simple model. Using a parametric solid modeler allows quickly resizing the design as it changes and rerunning the analysis. The meshed model contains 26,219 nodes and 33,949 elements with a nominal element size of 0.1 in. The relatively small size does not call for applying symmetry, a technique that reduces model size by working with a symmetric half of the model. "There are several methods for getting model geometry into FEA packages," says Fryberger. "One way uses the FEA software's builtin CAD or solid-modeling tools, another uses stand-alone 2D or 3D-CAD software, and a third uses stand-alone, 3D solid modelers. The choice is largely personal preference although 3D solid modelers are clearly preferred by many including myself". An older approach