Thread: FEA Modeling
View Single Post
  #2   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 23-01-2004, 12:30
Kevin Sevcik's Avatar
Kevin Sevcik Kevin Sevcik is offline
(Insert witty comment here)
FRC #0057 (The Leopards)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Rookie Year: 1998
Location: Houston, Texas
Posts: 3,692
Kevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond reputeKevin Sevcik has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via AIM to Kevin Sevcik Send a message via Yahoo to Kevin Sevcik
Re: FEA Modeling

FEA software tends to be rather excitingly expensive. And requires hardware capable of ludicrous speed to analyze anything more complicated than a single part.

To top it off, it's rather easy to misapply it and misinterpret the results if you don't know what you're doing.

On the other hand, plain old hand calculations are cheap, and can probably get you enough accuracy to satisfy. If you don't know how to do it, find a MechE college student or a textbook on strength of materials. Half-priced books or Half.com should provide.

If all that fails, then someone here should probably write up a brief whitepaper on rudimentary strength calculations.

If I must recommend something, though, Ansys DesignSpace would probably work well. It appears that the educational edition, which has limited functionality, would run you $320.
__________________
The difficult we do today; the impossible we do tomorrow. Miracles by appointment only.

Lone Star Regional Troubleshooter

Last edited by Kevin Sevcik : 23-01-2004 at 12:47.