Hill not worth fighting on: some people don't contribute to the coffee-club, but have a cup or two about once a week.
Hill worth fighting on: I should be able to choose my preferred "business notes" notebook, calculator, and writing utensils.
There are two main categories of physics problems that we like to solve with FEA -- static problems and dynamic problems. Then there are two ways to formulate the systems of equation that arise from these problems: implicit systems of equations and explicit systems of equations.
While we...
Here's your "FEA is complex" response [wink]
There are two major things to think about when it comes to FEA: capability and user-workflow. I would argue that the capability is (largely) available in the open-source domain. It's the user-workflow that's hard. For instance, there are some...
What I mean is that since the predominant weak-formulation of elastostatics assumes that u ∈ H1(Ω), that then σ ∈ H0(Ω). The N unique stress values that are computed at a node (N being the number of elements that share the node) satisfy this assumption, satisfy the best approximation property...
Just to be clear, in most traditional finite element methods the solution is approximated with piecewise continuous basis functions (i.e. C0 basis functions), the exception being that some shell and beam elements use smooth (C1) basis functions (e.g. Cubic Hermites). This means that while the...
Something to be aware of is that Abaqus uses a C0 formulation (at least for most cases). This means that while the solution variable (displacements in your case) are continuous at the element boundaries (i.e. nodes) -- meaning that there is one and only one solution value at each node -- that...
I think it's fantastic that you've written a FEM code - regardless of whether it ever catches on. I also think it would be fine for you to open-source the project, if that's what you want. I do think, however, that you need to do some more consideration if you expect your code to form the...
Sorry for the math-dump but this is perhaps the most concise way to state the answer.
Adapted from Hughes "The Finite Element Method", Chapter 4.
Consider the exact problem written in weak form:
Find u ∈ S such that for all w ∈ V :
a(w, u) = (w, f) + (w, g)Γ
The approximate finite element...
Hi PHristov,
Let me preface this message with a disclaimer - I work for Coreform where we develop and sell the Coreform Cubit mesh generation software. Prior to joining Coreform I worked for ~8 years as an FEA analyst, as a contractor to the US DOE and did a lot of experimenting with various...