[ChrisH]

The latest version of Inventor contains an application to do this. I've been working on learning it for about a month. I'm still not good at it. Oh and by the way I'm a licensed PE in Mechanical and I have some background in Finite Element ANalysis. SO I have some idea what I'm doing. The program seems quite powerful but, as with any analysis program, the way you set up the problem is critical to getting good results.

The Dynamic Analysis program can feed the forces it computes directly into the stress analysis section. I haven't done much with this yet. I'm still getting the dynamics down and there are some things I really don't like about the way they do the stress. The big thing is they give you the total number but don't break it down into components. There can be a really big difference between 50ksi compression and 50ksi tension.

Another problem is that critical components in the sign I'm working on are PVC which behaves in a non-linear fashion at high stress levels. I can't tell if the stress program handles that properly or not.

Not that I'm complaining. A seat of NASTRAN, (one of NASA's most overlooked revolutionary inventions and the program we use at work) will set you back tens of thousands of dollars a year. This doesn't count the cost of the person to drive it. An experienced stress person can set you back $100K per year,easy.

Getting a toy like this to play with for free? I'll gladly put up with the limitations. It is certainly far more capable than it needs to be for our purposes.

Has anyone else out there been playing with this stuff? Or am I the only one who has had the requesit curiousity?