What
benefits can you expect as a result of having finite element analysis performed on your design?
There are four main benefits, aside from potential cost savings, where FEA may provide benefits to you, the customer.- Design Validation
- Design Modification
- OEM Compliance
- Verifying field Failure Issues
Design Validation without Physical Testing During the
design process, typically there are several different design modifications being considered. How do you determine which modifications are the most effective without building expensive tooling and prototypes? The simplest method is finite element analysis. FEA enables several design iterations to be tested and validated without the need for physical parts or prototypes to be built for each iteration. This saves money and time in the design cycle.
Design Modifications: Does the design perform Safely??? Is the current design as mass efficient as it could be? As stiff as it needs to be? Does it perform under new or changing conditions as well as it did
under the original conditions? All of these questions and several others may be answered using FEA.
OEM Compliance: FEA is so widely used in the automotive and other industries that design specifications often
require an analysis as part of the design validation process. Even where FEA is not specifically requested, it still is a cost effective, timely solution to the design validation compliance issue.
Verifying field Failure Issues
Even with all the testing and validating currently done before a design is put into production, situations arise which cause the part to fail in the field. When this occurs, it is often very difficult to determine what loads caused the failure. In this situation, FEA shines. The part may be excersized the amount which caused the failure using FEA. The analysis results allow the
FEA engineer to look into the failure mode and determine what loads the part experienced. The engineer can then communicate this information to the designer. Together, they can determine which modifications are required to solve the design failure issue.
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