Stress Analysis

There are programs for each of your subjects, the main difficulty may be deciding which one to buy. The greatest advice I can offer is to make sure you understand the behavior that the program is trying to model, to make sure you understand the effects of load on the structures, piping, tanks etc. so that you can see if the output makes sense. You often have to be able to recognize garbage coming out of the program in order to tell if your input included some garbage.

caeser II

Okay, my first question to you is: What type of Structural Engineering Review Courses are they asking you to take? There's a huge difference between the design and analysis of building structures vs. the design and analysis of aboveground or underground storage tanks.

Secondly, the selection of the review course involving FEA software should be tailored specifically to the FEA software your company already has, as well as the types of structures you are required to design and/or analyze. It makes no sense to attend a course for some other company's FEA software, as it's not cost and time effective to relearn anew your company's software package.

Yes, it makes sense to retake a FEA refresher course at the University if you have lost that knowledge and information since college.

FEA is the top for stress analysis. It can do anything. I'm trying to get my company to buy me some of that software so if you figure out how to convince management to buy that expensive software please let me know.

Otherwise, CAESAR II is the best for piping. Not sure about structures. COMPRESS or PV Elite are the top for pressure vessels and I think there's a program called Tank or something like that for storage tanks.

FEA is overkill in some situations for these analyses. For instance, you don't want to use FEA on a large pipe network because it will take much longer to calculate than CAESAR II. Also, CAESAR II and COMPRESS (and PV Elite) are considered "smart programs" because they compare the calculations to the respective design codes. FEA programs require you to have an extensive working knowledge of those codes.

Yeah, the Intergraph software packages like Caesar II, Tank and PVElite are fantastic FEA platforms, but they're too damn expensive and only useful for designing oil-handling facilities. The Tank one can only design steel oil tanks per API specs....cannot design precast or post-tensioned concrete water tanks, etc.

OP has to elaborate further on what his final needs are, especially in regard to the type of material(s) handling he/she is (are) dealing with...

CaptMoosie...

the working platforms around equipments of petrochemical facility, mostly including Beams, C-Channels and angle bars.

being a piper, i feel it's a good chance to start with CAESAR II, in this case i will be stick to my basics and on other hand can generate reasonable structure design (i found that CAESAR II does have structural directory to work on).

FEA would be a big deal for both of us in commercial and technical terms to proceed for.

i tried ETANK2000, its a good release but soon will be superseded by AMETANK, mainly used for above ground storage tanks with different roof types.

Will it be a wise step to take CAESAR II ?

If you have no software for all these things that you need to look at, then you might want to look at the cost of getting CAESAR, COMPRESS, AMETANK, and a good structural software (I've never heard anyone using CAESAR for structural which tells me that it might not be that effective for it) vs FEA.

CAESAR II is great for pipe stress analysis though. But you'll still need something for everything else...or you could calculate by hand.

http://www.cadfamily.com/online-help/c2ap_web%5C4346.htm

i cant see the images but check out this link.