Finite Element Analysis

What is FEA (Finite Element Analysis)?

When you have an object with a weird shape that can’t be analyzed easily FEA is used. FEA breaks the object into a finite amount of little pieces and evaluates the characteristics about those pieces with respect to the other elements around it.

For example a ski.

With FEA as ski is broken up it to tons of little pieces. The program then evaluates how each little piece acts around and with the other and gives a larger picture. The ski.

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FEA allows designers to analyze as they design and change and update models to reach workable solutions much earlier in the design process.

When FEA programs break objects into finite elements the program reads the stiffness matrix to evaluate the object’s strength as a whole.

Stiffness Matrix

• The stiffness matrix contains the primary characteristics of a finite element. 

• This means that the Stiffness Matrix holds information such as geometric and material behaviours. 

• The Matrix represents the element’s resistance to change when exposed to external energies (force, heat, other stuff)

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Ansys FEA Uses

• Strength Analysis - Understanding component strength is needed to determine a product’s lifecycle, performance, and failure modes. Thermal stress, pressure conditions, bolt tension, mechanical loading, and rotational acceleration are important factors that be shown with FEA

• Composite materials

• Impacts - The Ansys structural mechanics software suite models impact between two or more bodies, including explicit dynamics, mechanical, and rigid body dynamics, allowing you to determine damage and deformation.

• Vibration Analysis - Ansys Mechanical simulations can help us to understand how certain designs will respond to vibrations from phenomena such as brake squeal, earthquakes, transport, and acoustic and harmonic loads.

• Optimization - Changes can be made and tested before any manufacturing starts, saving time and materials.

• Thermal Analysis - As the envelope continues to be pushed further by the drive for lighter, more efficient, and smaller designs, heat and thermal management become more critical. FEA can create accurate simulations for thermal models that include not just radiation, convection, and conduction loads, but also effects of power losses and thermal energy pipe flows and friction.

• Topology Optimization - The optimal shape of a part is often organic and counterintuitive; Ansys topology optimization technology allows users to specify where supports and loads are located on a volume of material and lets the software find the best shape.

• Additive Manufacturing - Additive manufacturing is a method of fabricating complex parts layer-by-layer from a 3-D model. Ansys additive manufacturing simulations help you optimize your design for 3-D printing, determine any potential stresses or distortions in the design so they can be corrected upfront, and predict the microstructure of the part based on the thermal history during fabrication.

• Durability - Ansys FEA software can perform fatigue analysis, so unexpected failures and warranty expenses can be avoided by learning how designs behave across time and increased load cycles.

• Rigid body Dynamics - In the physical science of dynamics, rigid-body dynamics studies the movement of systems of interconnected bodies under the action of external forces.

• Hydrodynamics - Offshore structures often have specific design requirements. Ansys software can reproduce load conditions and responses for projects, from high-fidelity simulations with all fluid loading environment aspects to simple models for truss-type structures.