Intro to Finite Elements. Lecture 1.

A thirty lecture series on introductory finite element analysis as used in structural mechanics. Suitable for Aerospace, Mechanical, Civil, and other scientific disciplines.
The lectures were made by Professor William J. Anderson at The University of Michigan.
The material was prepared 17 years ago, but is classical in nature. The lectures start with very elementary discussions and lead to moderate sophistication. The class was typically taken by MS level engineers, with a sprinkling of BS seniors. Several commercial codes are used for examples. These lectures were widely used for industrial training, as promoted by the MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation, with sales of $300,000 for the materials (CDs, books, study guides). They are now being released by Professor Anderson at no charge to the viewers.

The materials were used for more than 15 years in coursework at The University of Michigan and are practically error-free. Although 17 years old, many of the lectures are classic and should be very useful for reference in coursework or industry. About 6000 people have been trained with this introductory course.

Professor Anderson has scanned the textbook that supports this course and he allows you to download and copy it. It is at:

A black and white study guide (8.5"x11") containing all the figures is

You also have his permission to download and copy this.

All of the documents for Anderson's 3 courses are listed under:

The lectures have been reprocessed, with much clearer audio and color, except for lectures 2A and 2B. 11 Dec 2013.

[jorgeguzman]

Thank you a lot Mr William J Anderson. Your course is very good.

[druryd]

Thank you Dr William for this amazing lecture series.

[Zee]

Thank you William for uploading this. This is really great to watch from time to time to refresh the basics of FEM. These videos has really helped me during my first year as a CAE engineer.

[miholju]

Thank you so much Dr. Anderson, for providing your lectures. I am very excited to come across all of your lectures and being able to refresh my favorite topic; while acquiring my BSME. Also thank you for your service (USAF).

I only regret not knowing of your efforts during my time as an engineering student (years ago).

I hope that your are doing well, and take care, sir.

[debbiereeves]

Thank you very much Professor Anderson. I appreciate your work and for your willingness to share it on youtube.

[billaumichedu]

Dear Viewers,

The updating of this Linear Static FEA course is now complete. Happy viewing.
Bill Anderson
30 August, 2013

[luu]

Wonderful lectures! Thank Prof. Anderson so much!

[alejandrooneil]

Thank you for sharing these precious and useful materials.

[MSportsEngineering]

Professor Anderson, very nice lecture. Thanks!

[imanog]

I would like to thank you for sharing this... sharing knowledge is power :)

[billaumichedu]

Kent Cultz,

Whoops! I must be getting old.  I see you wanted the linear STRAIN element.  My answer was wrong-- it was for the linear DISPLACEMENT field in a triangle.  A linear strain element would have to be a multinoded element.
I don't have a lecture on that, but mention the higher order elements once in a while.  The isoparametric elements are
used a lot in some computer codes.  You might look at my lecture (later in the series) on those.

[billaumichedu]

Kent Cultz,

Yes there is a lecture on the triangular element.  It must be somewhere between lectures 3 and 6.  It was the first really useful
element, so it is of historical interest.  It was popular at the start of the FEA craze because it was easy to program on a computer.

I'm glad you are studying the field as you gain experience.

Bill Anderson

[billaumichedu]

Dear Viewers,

I am currently uploading this new, better version of lecture materials--the audio and video are much clearer than the first version and the "text box" is enlarged. This task should be finished in about 2 weeks.

Bill Anderson

29 August,  2013

[Ronchiniify]

Dear Mr. William,
I am very gratefull with you, and I think that a lot of people, for sharing your knowledge with everybody, and with the quality of the explanations. I have a question: could you recomend to me any bibliography for the modal spectral response analysis? Thank you very much for you attention.

[shaimaaahmed]

Thanks Dr. Anderson, I have a question please, I am using Ansys code for nonlinear analysis for SMA, and I am not sure if it is suitable for this kind of analysis because you said ABAQUS is for nonlinear analysis, so do you think it is better to switch the code to get better results.?. thanks

[Hexspa]

I'm on THAT part of YouTube again

[williamanderson]

Dear Juan Jose',

I retired 1 years ago, so am a little cold on the topic of modal response.  It is fairly classic, and is discussed in most good vibration textbooks.   Electrical engineers also have studied this a lot.  They have developed their own terminology about such response, so you have to read their work carefully.

An important factor is how much damping the system has.  If damping is small, one can get rather pure response in one mode when the driving frequency nears the natural frequency of that mode.

The various handbooks of MacNeal-Schwendler (supporting the MSC/Nastran code) are a good source of such information, if you can find them.  The aerospace industy is very interested in modal approaches.

If I remember anything else, I'll add to these comments!  I am spending a lot of time playing golf and volleyball, as well as woodworking and gardening.  I reach 80 years old in 4 months, and my volleyball friends just break out laughing/wonderment as I spike the volleyball past them!

Bill Anderson

[williamanderson]

Whoops, in my last note, I mistyped that I retired 1 years ago.  It actually was 15 years ago!  Time flies!

Bill