How Do FEA Simulations Work?

Have you ever wondered where the calculations used by complex simulation programs come from? Everything used by those complex FEA tools comes from Isaac Newton's fundamental equations that describe force. How you apply them, combined with various material properties gives you the results you can expect from tools like Abaqus, SOLIDWORKS Simulation, or even SimXpress.

#finiteelementanalysis #fea #simulation #engineering #solidworks #newton #freesoftware #fundamentals #engineeringexplained #abaqus #engineeringstudent #engineeringtools

[brentlackey]

K is not the mass. it is the stiffness of the elements in the model. K is determined by Young's modulus of the material and the shape of the element. The mass only affects the Force of gravity which is in the F matrix.

[brentlackey]

That is the equation for a spring mass damped system which is not Newton's fundamental equation! Newton's fundamental equation does not account for damping and it is just F=ma. You are not using F=ma, you are using Hooke's Law which relates force to displacement of a spring.

[RayceVR]

How do you get the mass part to use for the equation?

[AlekseiCalhoun]

Might want to emphasize this only applies to static loading, especially considering you're showing footage of what looks like explicit dynamics (LS-DYNA?) in the first part of the video. Can't do those sims with equilibrium!