Yes, and quite frankly, I should have given up sooner. Some parts lend themselves well to manual analysis; the part in question did not.
I guess it basically boils down to personal preference and what comes naturally to the individual. Using Roark's never felt natural to me.
In engineering, as elsewhere, the ability to think things through is what distinguishes the superstars. And for better or worse the toolset will, from here on out, consist mostly of commercial FEA software.
One problem I see in discussions of the value of FEA is that the term "FEA" means such...
If you haven't done so already, you should look at DEFORM-3D, particularly the machining toolkit:
http://www.wildeanalysis.co.uk/fea/software/deform/deform-3d-suite/machining
The website shows some really impressive images of simulated chip formation and the company claims their code can...
I am currently involved in the design of a new plant process which uses liquid CO2 as its primary medium. Besides a substantial quantity of liquid CO2, our process also requires about 1 CFM of CO2 gas at 650 psi. The storage tank is set at 300 psi.
Our gas supplier (BOC) has suggested using a...