FEA: Not Just for Gurus

Have a look also at the Open Source Linux distro CAELinux, which has the advantage of being integrated into the entire operating system, not just the CAD package...

There is a problem with FEA for the masses, however. Just because you can easily set up and run a simulation does not mean your results have any relationship whatsoever with the real world. It still takes insight and an in-depth understanding of physics, materials, etc. to be able to set up a simulation and then interpret and validate the results such that meaningful information can be gleaned from the results.

Cwarner 7 11: Sounds to me that you think an engineer using FEA doesn't understand the scientific method. My mother ,now 82, is part of the masses i don't think she's going to bother with FEA

Matt-

Over the years, I have known too many "engineers" that think a computer analysis is always correct, and if the real world does not behave as the computer says it should, then there is something wrong with the real world. There are many, many subtle issues (i.e., mesh details, boundary conditions, interaction of physical phenomena, etc.) that have a profound effect on the results of the analysis. Any analysis is only going to be an approximation of the real world, and one must understand the limitations imposed by the process by which the model has simplified the system under study.

By the way, I have also encountered a number of "engineers" that can't understand that just because you can design something on paper does not necessarily mean you can build it in the real world...

I agree CW. I've seen some incomprehensible results out of FEA just because of some minor input 'distortion'.

The big worry is that there is a tendency to blindly believe the results, particularly by people with no 'practical feel' for what range it aught to be in.