seeking an advise

[stu11uk]

Hello

I am a new graduate studied civil engineering. Just thought Id post a thread to seek an advise from experienced engineers especially finite element analysts or stress analysts on this forum. I found myself I have a big interest in finite element in my final year of university even though at my university we didnt cover finite element that much I taught myself most of the stuff luckily we have all sorts of finite element solvers on the computers such as ansys..etc mainly mechnical students tend to use it.

I can now do some basics analysis and have purchased some books to learn some of the basics theories on stress analysis I would really like to pursue a career towards that path. seeing that I am of civil engineering background would it be possible for me to master finite element and become stress analyst without tutoring? I have got some savings and I am looking to purchase a solver probably strand7 as it looks affordable.

 

[IceBreakerSours]

NAFEMS webinar should give you a 30,000 ft. expert view of the overall finite element modeling process. Watch it 7:26 onwards.

And this webpage has a pretty comprehensive list of resources.

http://www.eng-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=376

 

[rb1957]

there are plenty of free solvers out there ... usually limited in scope, say 300 nodes, but that's plenty to explore FEA.

maybe MIT OpenCourse has something (free).

i'd do some initial work, so i know somethng of the subject matter, then consider a post-grad course, or a job using FE.

the danger with your approach is not learning classic stress analysis first means your foundation for FEA isn't very sound. you may have done some stress analysis at school, but that's only the introduction ... experience in the workplace really teaches you the subject matter.

are civ.engs still well schooled in energy methods ? ... this would be a foundation for FEA.

 

[stu11uk]

Hey rb

Thanks

I am actually learning stress analysis from those open universities online such as MIT and Naptel and there are a lot of useful lectures on stresses and finite element on youtube. I studied finite element at school but mainly static linear analysis and I did my dissertation on dynamic analysis. so I can do basic seismic analysis response spectrum and linear time history.

I am more interested in the fun part of finite element you know the sort of analysis you guys aerospace and mechnical engineers do.

my civil engineering course is general we covered bits from here and there geotechnical, environment, structural. I am more of structural type of person.

 

[Twoballcane]

If you are looking for some real interesting work, I suggest looking into defense contractors. Military equipment has some harsh structural requirements due to dynamic responses such as random vibration and shock and as well with static loads. Now it is sounds like your more interested in analysis (math and physics) than improving FEA code. I’m more into electronic packaging so my two top books are Vibration Analysis for Electronic Equipment by Dave Steinberg and Practical Stress Analysis in Engineering Design by Ronald Huston. These two books will give you great foundation to work upon. If anything, try to work static and dynamic engineering problems from any Mechanical Engineering text book in FEA. First do the hand calculations and then model it in FEA and see if you correlate. This will give you good discipline once you get into some real analysis work. With your dynamic background, it would be a plus also to understand testing with shakers and shock machines from collecting data with transducers and then converting it into useful information. A good book on this is Vibration Spectrum Analysis by Steve Goldman.

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”

 

[IceBreakerSours]

Being a BioE, I must say, there are some super-cool things going on in my domain. For example, tissue/tumor growth, bi-phasic/tri-phasic modeling of cartilage, hyperelastic transversely isotropic models of muscles/ligaments/tendons, discrete cellular level models .. fun stuff!

http://www.eng-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=376