Course Title: Finite Element Fundamentals with Applications

Course Number: AerE 590c

Course Discipline: Engineering

 

This course is primarily for Distance Engineering Students. People who are working and would like to learn the fundamentals of Finite Element Analysis are welcome.

In past I have had students from Boeing, NASA, Rockwell-Collins, John Deer, US Army, and many other industries. Demographically they have been from all over USA and one from Thailand too.

 

Topics Covered in this course

  1. Basic aspects of FEA.
  2. Basic concepts of stresses and strains
  3. Energy methods, work potential and strain energy, Principle of Minimum Potential, Raleigh Ritz method.

4.      Saint Venant’s Principle. Failure theories, such as Max. normal stress, max shear stress and von Mises failure theory.

  1. 1-D Finite Element.
  2. Potential energy formulation.
  3. Application of boundary conditions,
  4. 3 noded 1-D element concept of higher order element
  5. Temperature Effects in the FE formulations.
  6. Guided tour of ANSYS.
  7. 1-D truss equation.
  8. Beam analysis
  9. Frames and their analysis.
  10. 2-D Finite Element Analysis
  11. 2-D and some considerations of boundary conditions and symmetry.
  12. An-isotropic materials, and composites.
  13. Axisymmetric Formulation of structures.
  14. 2-D isoparamteric elements and the approximate integrations.
  15. Discretization process, simplification due to symmetry, and finite representation of an infinite body.
  16. Thin walled problems.
  17. Higher Order Elements, their advantages and limitations.
  18. 3-D problems

23.  Design optimization.

  1. The nonlinear behavior of structures, both material and geometric.
  2. Steady state heat transfer problem.

26.  Buckling of Bars

27.  Approximate buckling methods using the Raleigh Ritz formulation

  1. Finite Element formulation of buckling.
  2. Coupling and Constraints in FE
  3. The contact problems in finite elements.
  4. Vibration of structures problems
  5. Modal analysis of vibrations.
  6. Forced response of a single degree of freedom vibrating system.
  7. Complete the harmonic response of a 2 degree of freedom system.
  8. Single degree of freedom system under arbitrary loading.
  9. Other scalar field problems which can be solved by FEA, such as potential flow, electric potential, fluid flow in ducts, acoustics, and seepage and groundwater flow.

 

Prerequisites: Strength of materials course.