Finite Element Analysis Answers

Here you will find more information on the finite element (FE) method.

This question and answer exchange should occur whenever we discuss finite element analysis (FEA) with our clients for the first time, that’s why we have placed it here on the web.

Qualifications Regarding FEA

These questions and answers are our effort to qualify the FEA method for old-school engineering traditionalists, who are unfamiliar with the new wave of “click” engineering and for that reason, don’t trust it. It is also for those who have only a superficial exposure to FEA, or to those whose experience has been a bad one. This last scenario usually involves the manager of an over-zealous, inexperienced engineer who got in way over his head.

FEA is not a Panacea

Here we put on our education hat and alert the reader to this vital point: software vendors try to sell the idea that their FEA package is always the quickest, easiest, and most exact way to cut corners around the difficult task of sound engineering. This is true only when the analyst, like any other professional, knows how to efficiently and incisively employ this powerful analytical tool.

Software alone will not make a designer an engineer. Moreover, it has been our experience, that FEA software alone will not make an engineer necessarily a better one.