CHAPTER 9
The Stress Analysis Environment
The Finite Element Method (FEM) – an Overview
The finite element method (FEM) is a mathematical/computer-based numerical technique for calculating the strength and behavior of engineering structures. Autodesk Inventor – and much other analysis software – is based on the FEM, where, simply, a component is broken down into many small elements, as shown below.
Let's assume that we need to determine the displacement of the component. This displacement (unknown quantity) acts over each element in a predefined manner – with the number and type of elements chosen so that overall distribution through the component ...
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