Finite element analysis

Finite element analysis (FEA) has been successfully used for product engineering for decades. Along with that, high-fidelity modeling approaches and more pragmatic ones were continuously developed, which let you obtain sufficiently accurate results faster.

Today, engineers can and must choose the level of accuracy that best fits their needs to answer engineering questions with minimum computational effort. The level of accuracy ranges from high-fidelity modeling techniques that enable the prediction of real behavior within a few percent or even less to quick methods that enable quick trend predictions.

Today, certification and verification processes for FEA simulation tools are well established. They will remain a critical ingredient to the progress of FEA, its reliability and trust in digital twins and its establishment in novel areas. While predictive simulation will continuously reduce the need for expensive measurements and prototyping, it will continue to require rigorous FE methods and best practices validation through experiments. 

Learning FEA requires time, dedication, thorough study and practice. It is critical to understand the underlying fundamental physics of your domain, grasp numerical methods and their limitations and practice the hands-on usage of the actual FEA software tool. Thanks to automation, increasing computing power and ever-continuous improvement of user interfaces in modern FEA software, the barriers to high-fidelity FEA will further decrease across all user levels - shifting the scope to exploring results and making simulation-based decisions. It is also critical to understand the fundamental physical dynamics that are taking place to judge the results and make meaningful engineering decisions based on FEA results.

FEA software is used in a wide range of engineering applications whenever there is a need to understand or predict mechanical physics and its effect on the design of a product or system. In industrial product design, finite element analysis has progressed to simulating the multiphysics behavior in complex geometries, enabling companies to fully understand and optimize their product design virtually before building a prototype.

Industries where finite element analysis is widely used include:

• Aerospace
• Automotive
• Consumer products
• Marine (ship design, propulsion systems and engine design)
• Electronics
• Energy (nuclear, oil & gas and power generation)
• Building services
• Life sciences
• Turbomachinery
• Sports
• Other general applications involving structures, vibrations, electromagnetics, sound, heat and fluid flow

The finite element method means the same thing as finite element analysis. The main difference is that FEM refers more specifically to the mathematical method. But many people use the terms FEM and FEA interchangeably.

Sometimes engineers use FEM is also used to refer to the finite element model, which primarily means the meshed (1D, 2D or 3D) model, which can also include loads and constraints.