What questions to expect during the interview for a graduate level FEA analyst position?

[Rcct]

Hi,

I am a PhD student in materials engineering and have worked extensively with non linear FEA in ABAQUS. I have developed VUMATs (for a constitutive equation) and postprocessing scripts and whatnot for my PhD research. I am well versed with ABAQUS and fairly understand how it all works under the hood.

But, I have never taken any courseworks in FEA, just studied through books and online videos. While studying, I tried few problems by hand and solved 1d, 2d problems using Matlab (through guided tutorial).

I am thinking of making a shift to industry as an analyst. But I feel very incompetent and unconfident about my theoretical knowledge. I would like to do something about it and not believe that an analyst position is not my cup of tea.

So, what kind of questions (theoretical) should I prepare for incase I am selected for a technical interview?

And what kind of problems would one expect an expert in FEA to be able to solve by hand? Do they ask for solving a problem on board during an interview? How often does one have actually solve anything by hand in industry?

I have a materials engineering undergraduate background too.

 

[IRstuff]

Much depends on what level of job you're interviewing for.


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[TheTick]

I'd rather teach a materials guy how to run FEA than try to make some software jockey understand materials.

 

[CWB1]

I'd expect an FE analyst to have at least 5-10 years' experience in mechanical design and manufacturing. Realistically, they're getting the work the mechanical design team cant or doesnt have the time to handle, not something that hand calcs or simple 3d FE/modal analysis can cover as those tools are commonly available to the team outsourcing the work to the analyst. IE - optimizing complex kinematic assemblies for manufacturing/material cost and assembly. FE analysts also need to be experts in solid modeling so they can tweak and deliver optimized models in the design team's native CAD format.

 

[Sparweb]

I am thinking of making a shift to industry as an analyst.

Also depends on the industry you want. Materials processing, product manufacturing, chemical...?
I can only speak from my own perspective. We use FEA, but we also use basic principles, and we solve a lot of problems that we can look up in books for methodologies that were solved empirically in the 1930's/50's/70's depending on the kind of problem it is. And when I say "by hand" I often refer to using a spreadsheet or MathCAD/Matlab or whatever suitable analysis tool is available. I will avoid FEA when the scope of the problem doesn't require it, but knowledge of FEA is valuable to setting up many kinds of problems, even when they don't need it.

And what kind of problems would one expect an expert in FEA to be able to solve by hand? Do they ask for solving a problem on board during an interview? How often does one have actually solve anything by hand in industry?

It's not very likely that you would be asked to solve a FEA problem during an interview. Maybe a statically determinate problem or two. I've worked for companies that do and some that don't. I haven't been asked to do it, even though analysis is a cornerstone of my job. I personally believe that it is a good idea, but Human Resources doesn't know how to evaluate such things, and not all HR will bring engineering managers/technical experts who can check the result.

Somewhat related: I have sub-contracted companies to do CFD analysis for me, and one of them actually told me that they didn't like to hire PHD's. They perceived the PHD as preferring to focus on generating the analysis, rather than generating the solution/optimization that the customer is looking for. I've only heard that attitude once, but I thought I'd offer you that little warning.

No one believes the theory except the one who developed it. Everyone believes the experiment except the one who ran it.
STF

 

[IRstuff]

Every interviewer is different. Some will give you a real problem, others will ask what your hobbies are, some will give you trick questions, and still others will ask you HOW you would solve a problem

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[yirmidokuz]

@RCCT,

Might be out of topic, but can you share what was your road to learn FEA by yourself from beginning to the level you are now. I hold masters of material engineer degree, and I am genuinely interested in FEA, specifically non-linear. So, i think I expect to hear useful strategy from you to learn about the field.