Home » Services » Strength calculation (FEM)

“SketchArt Engineering offers specialized strength calculations and finite element analysis (FEA) to ensure the durability and safety of components and assemblies under real-world conditions. Our FEA services provide accurate insights into stress, strain, and load distribution, essential for reliable and optimized designs.”

About the Service

Our strength calculation and FEA services are integral to delivering designs that meet rigorous safety, functionality, and efficiency standards. These services include:

  • Load and Stress Analysis: We perform comprehensive load and stress evaluations to understand how components will respond to various operational forces, ensuring structural integrity and long-term reliability.
  • Finite Element Analysis (FEA): Using advanced FEA software, we simulate real-world conditions to analyze the effects of stress, strain, and deformation on each component. This method identifies high-stress areas, allowing us to make design adjustments before production.
  • Flow Analysis (CFD): For components exposed to fluid dynamics, we conduct Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses to assess flow patterns, pressure distribution, and potential turbulence, ensuring designs meet performance expectations under various conditions.
  • Optimization of Material and Thickness: We calculate the optimal material type and thickness required to achieve durability while minimizing weight and cost, ensuring that designs are both robust and efficient.

How We Work

Step 1

Submit a request through our website, email or by phone.

Step 2

Consultation and project detail discussion meeting.

Step 3

Service delivery within the agreed-upon timeframe and budget.

Step 4

Project handover and client feedback.

Service Integration

Our strength calculations and FEA services integrate seamlessly with SketchArt’s full engineering suite, including 3D detail design, mechanical engineering calculations, manufacturing drawings, and layout design. This holistic approach allows us to develop designs that are accurate, efficient, and fully validated for performance. By leveraging FEA and CFD analyses early in the design phase, we help clients avoid costly adjustments, optimize material use, and ensure safe, durable products that meet industry standards.

Overview

In general, the finite element method (FEM) is a numerical method used to perform finite element analysis (FEA) of any given physical phenomenon to predict the behavior of a structure.

What is finite element analysis? For most geometries and problems, partial differential equations cannot be solved using analytical approaches. Instead, we can approximate these equations using discretization techniques that can be solved using numerical methods.

Therefore, the solutions we obtain also approximate the fundamental solution of these PDEs. FEM is an approximation method that subdivides a complex space or domain into several small, countable, and finite parts (hence the name finite elements) whose behavior can be described by relatively simple equations.

The method was originally developed for engineering analysis to model and analyze complex systems in mechanical, civil, and aeronautical engineering. Its principles can be derived from Newton’s laws of motion, conservation of mass and energy, and the laws of thermodynamics.

For Example the finite element method (FEM) can be used to analyze the structural integrity of heavy-duty machinery components, such as the stress distribution on conveyor support frames under load or the deformation of steel beams used in industrial structures. These insights allow us to optimize designs for durability, safety, and cost-efficiency.

Historical Background

  • The term “finite element” was introduced in 1960 by Ray William Clough in his paper “The Finite Element Method in Plane Stress Analysis.” In the early 60s, the method was used by several engineers to analyze stress, fluid transport, heat transport, and other subjects
  • The first book on the finite element method was published by Olgierd Zenkevich, Richard Lawrence Taylor, and Jianzhong Zhu
  • In the late 60’s and 70’s, the scope of fem analysis expanded to become the leading numerical approximation in a wide range of engineering problems
  • Most commercial codes such as ANSYS, ABAQUS, Adina, and several others emerged in the 1970’s
  • John Swenson releases the first version of his so-called ANalysis SYStems (ANSYS) FEA software tool (1970)
  • A web search (2006) for “finite element” using Google returned over 14 million pages, compared to 128 million in 2022.

Mathematical Foundation

In general, there are three methods by which engineers can solve engineering problems.

  • Classical Methods
  • Numerical Methods
  • Experimental Methods

Whenever engineers solve complex problems involving complex geometry, loading conditions, or material laws, they cannot use classical analytical approaches using closed-form methods. Therefore, numerical methods offer a way to solve a problem for which there is no analytical solution!

Software Tools for FEM

In the vast majority of cases, calculation modules of modern CAE software are based on FEM.

CAE systems are inextricably linked with CAD systems since structural integrity assessment or dynamic analysis are part of a more general design cycle, such as product construction. They are often integrated at the user interface level.

Here are some programs that are used for calculations:

  • Autodesk Inventor;
  • SolidWorks.

 

Advantages and Limitations of FEM

Modeling complex geometries and irregular shapes is easier as various finite elements are available for discretizing the domain.

Different material properties can be easily accommodated from element to element or inside an element.

Higher-order elements may be implemented if the tools allow it.

FEM modeling is simple, well-defined, result-oriented, and widely popular among an enthusiastic engineering community that can help you whenever you run into problems.

The availability of a large number of FEA software packages and literature makes FEM a versatile and powerful, and accessible numerical method.

Conclusion 

The various applications of FEM prove that this technique is of great value, as it provides engineers with the means to create efficient designs for large and complex problems that cannot be solved using analytical methods.

The FEA process involves many complex steps and includes numerous parameters that the user can adjust. With the democratization of finite elemente methode, the software has become much more streamlined, easily integrated into R&D engineering processes, and much more accessible to every engineer, designer, and small business.

In the future, the use and availability of cloud services such as SketchArt will intensify during design projects. The past and present of mathematical modeling and FEA software are success stories that will be enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI), which will be a significant step in the history of FEA.