Habituating FEA

Table illustrating the differences between truss and beam elements. See also Types of elements in the element library

One of the requirements to become a good finite element analyst is to be aware of a range of standard elements that are best for specific ap...

Today when we hear about finite element method (FEM) , the first thing that comes across our mind would be a beautiful picture like this: ...

Shape functions are polynomial functions that interpolate the discrete displacements into continuous functions. They are therefore also know...

During the assembly of the global stiffness matrix (K) , local stiffnesses are numerically integrated in the parent coordinate (the polyno...

Gaussian quadrature is a method that replaces an integral by a sum. As an example, consider the following 1D integral: Gaussian quadratu...