Training or Text Book Advice Needed

[RayTrowsdale]

Hi all.

I recently got trained on ANSYS Workbench and have now been given the task of analysing a whole range of die cast assemblies.

My problem is that prior to the training, I'd had nothing whatever to do with FEA, not even doing hand calcs. The training has shown me how to use the software but not how to go about tackling an analysis. Does that make sense? I guess I could just plough ahead and with experience I'll improve but how bad will my results be in the meantime?

What I'm really struggling with is what Supports to add and where.

I guess what usually happens is that you learn from colleagues but I can't do that as ANSYS is new for my company and 3 of us are all in the same situation.

Can anyone recommend a book or some training which may teach the fundamentals of FEA and strategies for going about an analysis?

Thanks for any advice.

Ray

 

[cbrn]

Hi,
well, there are plenty of - good - books on FE techniques, but due to the situation I'd ask your management for not only a training course on the software but rather a "follow-up" from qualified support people on a "pilot" project of yours. You will absolutely need that IN ADDITION to good books, in my opinion.

Sorry I won't recommend any books here because all I know are in Italian...

Regards

 

[RayTrowsdale]

Thanks for that. We are trying to convince them to do just that.

Ray

 

[Stringmaker]

I agree 100% w/ cbrn here. You really do need someone knowledgable to review the work you're doing and provide guidance where applicable. The price paid by not having good answers is almost always the more costly option in the end.

 

[Twoballcane]

This is a very dangeres situation. You can have garbage in / garbage out and you would not even know it. You should be able to do some hand calcs to make sure that the software is doing what you expect it to do. For static cases Roarks should be able to help you, for dynamics, I usally use Steinberg to check my Random and Sine. Using Ansys (or any other software) should be one of your tools to do an analysis, you have to correlate with either hand calcs or emprical data to get you to a good number.

Another book I just picked up is "Finite Elemetn Anaylysis by Saeed Moaveni" which is very detailed in FEA and how to use Ansys.



Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

 

[RayTrowsdale]

Thanks guys. I will look those books up.

 

[CAEguy]

TRAINING versus TUTORIAL

Ray has brought up an interesting point about the Quality of the so called "Training" classes that various FEA companies offer. Most these classes teach you which Buttons / Menus / Commands to use. I don't need a class for that. I can figure out those things myself. Nobody trained me how to use my cell phone or how to program my DVD player. Why do these Instructors that teach FEA classes insult the intelligence of mechanical engineers by spending two days just telling us which Buttons to click in their software.
That raises the questions "What do you think is the difference between a Training Lesson and a Tutorial". In my view, a Tutorial is something that helps you get familiar with the software. But a Training Lesson, on the other hand, tells you when to use what and what kind of input is needed and how to verify what you are getting. Yes, critcs will argue that all that stuff cannot be taught in 16 hours or 24 hours. But atleast, having a Training Lesson that will make me think and confident is better than a Tutorial that shows me the GUI.