Stress Analysis Software

http://www.autodesk.com/solutions/finite-element-analysis

if you want it cheap or free, here's a list you definitely should check out

http://www.freebyte.com/cad/fea.htm

Thank you Mr small, that is a fabulous link.

I have downloaded LISA and I'll see how I go with that.

Tony

I use it since many years and I am very satisfied. It depends what you want to analyse. It has no "contact elements". The price is very attractive and the person in charge is making a tremendous work in giving support.

If you need more then look at CALCULIX which is free.

Thank you Nick Name, what program are you referring to in your first paragraph?

Tony

Having not used any of these FEA programs, I realise the learning curve is huge. I touched on this subject 35 years ago when studying, but haven't since, using shear and tensile calculations on the important bits. Nothing has failed, but I'm probably over designing.

Thank you Solar Eagle for your contribution, that had some interesting information.

Tony

To LISA.

I started to use it when it was still at #5 or 6. There are some problems with it but if you do only do mechanical stress/strain analysis it works pretty well. it has the advantage to offer the possibility to get easy values along a frontier and transfer them to excel for a curve build up.