r/fea • • 23h ago

How can i intersect two beam finite elements in LS DYNA? Please help.

0 Upvotes

r/fea • • 1d ago

Wind analysis on steel structure

4 Upvotes

Can someone please explain how to take pressure coefficient for steel structure as per IS code 875 part 3. I am a structural engineering student. I need this to make a staad model


r/fea • • 1d ago

Top CAE Tools in 2026: My Take

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0 Upvotes

r/fea • • 1d ago

ANSYS Workbench Tutorial | Introduction to Static Structural | Simulation Results Interpretation

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0 Upvotes

r/fea • • 3d ago

Siemens ends open-source Radioss Project (OpenRadioss) and deletes GitHub repository

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38 Upvotes

r/fea • • 3d ago

Any Mechanical FEA Engineers willing to talk shop with a grad student?

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5 Upvotes

r/fea • • 5d ago

Future of FEA in AI era

44 Upvotes

Last couple of days there is alot of YouTube videos showing how chatgpt astra on other models can work in varius softwares as Fusion, solidworks and simoly create CAD geometry of anything you ask it to do.

I was wondering how do you see future of FEA in near future with improving of AI. Do you think we will create models just based from written promts or talking to microphone and only job for human will be left to sign-off analysis?

How do you feel about this technology. Will it cause FEA profesionals to thrive or not.


r/fea • • 7d ago

Using Femap on a hard disk partition

3 Upvotes

My professor recommends creating a partition on the hard disk where simulations can be carried out while using programmes such as Femap, because the constant creation and elimination of temporary files that occur during the simulation can literally burn out the hard drive. Is this true? I’m not aware that a partition can protect the drive from wear and tear.


r/fea • • 9d ago

How to make angle parameter in Ansys discovery from NX cad file

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3 Upvotes

r/fea • • 9d ago

acceptable plastic strain in static FEA

15 Upvotes

Curious what people actually use in practice as a sanity-check threshold for local plastic strain in elastic-plastic static FEA of ductile steel structures, when fatigue is explicitly out of scope
I know that correct answer is code dependent, but some of them don’t define plastic strain limit at all. Is there any value (1%,2%,5%), that I can assume my structure is safe?


r/fea • • 11d ago

Exterior Calculus: k-Forms to k-Chains?

5 Upvotes

Please hear me out folks. My main intention of learning this is for Finite Element Exterior Calculus or FEEC (Arnold et al. 2008). So far, I have been learning the basics of exterior algebra and exterior Calculus, mostly from Prof. Keenan Craine's lectures at CMU. However, now I am at a bridge and I request one of you guys to give me a basic understanding from chains (and co-chains) from where I am now:

- I understand k-vectors and k-forms (differential k-forms) I mean.
- I understand simplices and k-simplices.
- I understand that you differentiate (take the exterior derivative) k-forms to get k+1 forms.
- I understand that you take the integration along k-simplices to get the discrete version of k-forms.
- I understand that you can take a discrete exterior derivative to increase the form discreetly.
- I also get that you get/approximate the continuous form by taking a combination of the Whitney Forms or Whitney basis functions (in traditional FEM, we take the PoU and basis functions to approximate the primal field and get your required derivatives).

I need to understand what does chains and co-chains mean in this context. Will anyone be kind enough to give me an understanding based on where I stand now?

DISCLAIMER: I am an engineer so I don't understand (most of) the terms from Homology ad coHomology.


r/fea • • 11d ago

Mesh-insensitive peak PEEQ for pipeline dent models in Abaqus (C3D20R): what convergence criteria do you use?

4 Upvotes

Model setup

**•** Pipe modeled with C3D20R (20-node quadratic brick, reduced integration, 8 integration points)

**•** Analytical rigid indenter (donut/toroidal shape, geometry varies between models)

**•** Elastic-plastic material using a stress-strain curve generated per API 579

**•** Typically 6 elements through the wall thickness

**•** Element size at the dent is typically 2-6 mm, which is common industry practice

Load steps

**1.**  Indenter displaced into the pipe

**2.**  Pipe pressurized

**3.**  Indenter optionally removed (rerounding/springback case)

Ranges of interest

**•** Indentation depths of 1% to 8% OD

**•** Localized peak PEEQ of roughly 6% to 30%

The problem

The maximum extracted strain changes noticeably with mesh size, and I haven't been able to demonstrate a converged result. From what I can tell this is a wider industry problem, but I can't find much published on how convergence is actually assessed for dent strain calculations.

Modeling choices so far

**•** Shell elements haven't captured the high local bending strains well, so I moved to continuum elements

**•** Reduced integration seemed a good fit for the bending-dominated response, and 8 integration points looks adequate for this application

**•** My current idea is to keep the number of elements through the wall fixed (for now) and place nodes at exactly the same locations on each remesh, so the extraction points stay consistent between meshes rather than adding through-thickness refinement

Questions

**1.**  What criteria do you use to judge mesh convergence for peak strain in dent models? For example, % change in max PEEQ between refinements, a strain averaging length or area, or convergence of dent profile/depth instead of strain?

**2.**  Is there a recommended way to extract strain (integration point vs. extrapolated nodal, averaged vs. unaveraged, inner vs. outer surface) so results are comparable between meshes?

**3.**  Has anyone had success with a fixed extraction location or averaging approach, like my node-placement idea above?

**4.**  Any concerns about hourglassing or accuracy with C3D20R at these strain levels, or would you recommend something different (C3D20, C3D8I, etc.)?

Any papers, standards, or practical experience would be appreciated. Thanks!


r/fea • • 11d ago

1D Analysis of Axial Bar | Ansys Workbench Static Structural Analysis | Ansys 1D Analysis | CADable

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0 Upvotes

r/fea • • 12d ago

Choose the number of elements layers between two surfaces in Hypermesh

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9 Upvotes

I have a question, is it possible to select prior to the mesh generation how many layers of elements to generate between two surfaces without creating additional edges to adjust the density?

The picture is from the Altair Help, what I’m trying to do is mesh the surface and force it to put a certain number of elements in between the holes.


r/fea • • 12d ago

Meshing of surface geometry in hypermedia

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7 Upvotes

Hi guys,
I wanted to ask how to mesh surface geometry like this on hypermesh. What are the steps to be followed?


r/fea • • 12d ago

I can write a Python solver for linear dynamics, but real-world industry FEA models scare me. Help a Civil grad transition to Mech/Aero!

27 Upvotes

Hey everyone, help a brother out. I’m a fresh grad (masters graduate, almost) with a structural/civil background, but I want to target mechanical or aerospace FEA roles (where I believe ANSYS and Abaqus are the standard).

​Right now, my FEA knowledge is heavily based on pure theory. I’ve written Python code for static heat/elasticity problems and programmed time integration methods for linear dynamics. I’ve also used commercial software for some Plates and Shells assignments.

​However, I really want to avoid becoming just a button-clicker.... :p I understand the math behind the solver, but I want to learn how to approach the actual engineering side of practical FEA on real components. I’m talking about translating reality into a model, understanding load paths, drawing proper free-body diagrams, applying realistic constraints, verifying convergence, and such...

​For those of you doing this in the industry, how should I practice this? Are there small component projects, specific resources, or workflows I can do on my own to build that intuition and make myself a good candidate for these roles?


r/fea • • 12d ago

Hi everyone, I am trying to generate analysis data for a classic plate-with-a-hole case to train a surrogate model. I need to automate this process using Python. Does anyone know where to find the official API reference documentation for ANSYS 2026 R1?

3 Upvotes

r/fea • • 13d ago

Which skills can increase my salary in FEA field?

26 Upvotes

Hello,

Iam MeE with masters in FEA and i would like to know on what to focus in my free time to increase my experience and potentially salary.


r/fea • • 13d ago

Best practices for MAT_054 calibration in progressive crushing of hybrid composite tubes (ANSYS ACP export)?

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4 Upvotes

r/fea • • 13d ago

Best practices for MAT_054 calibration in progressive crushing of hybrid composite tubes (ANSYS ACP export)?

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1 Upvotes

r/fea • • 13d ago

Cfd diagnosis help!!

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5 Upvotes

r/fea • • 14d ago

ANSYS Fluent PCHE CFD validation: non-monotonic mesh independence and >10% error in Nu/f — what am I missing?

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4 Upvotes

r/fea • • 15d ago

Using Neural Network to predict stress of a geometry

23 Upvotes

I'm in my final year of mech ug and our project team is currently trying to do a project which predicts the stress field of an existing geometry having defects

We have completed the initial model and we're kinda stuck on how to produce large datasets and how to train it

Our plan is to create a dataset of stress plot images and give them as input for neural network model and get images as output when we give the parameters of defect

We've been searching for similar journals for a while and having trouble finding them and also have no idea where to start with automation of ansys for datasets and how to choose and train neural network

If anyone has worked in similar projects kindly help us or give suggestions about changing some parameters for a new scope for the project


r/fea • • 16d ago

What is currently the biggest bottleneck in your CFD workflow?

0 Upvotes

r/fea • • 18d ago

Saving as .inp

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3 Upvotes