Finite Element Analysis - Then And Now

By Author: Wade Knoxville
Total Articles: 18
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Finite Element Analysis or (FEA for short), was first developed in the 1940s by Alexander Hrennikoff and Richard Courant. During this period it was called finite-element method. It was a numerical method to solve civil and aerospace engineering problems.

By the 1960s it was becoming quickly apparent that there needed to be a computational solution that included the finite-element method for the space race. In 1965 the first finite-element software was created by NASA and it was called NASTRAN.

The first corporation contracted to develop NASTRAN was the Computer Sciences Corporation. The software was written in the FORTRAN computer language. The first version of NASTRAN was released in 1968. In order to operate NASTRAN, engineers had to insert paper cards into large computer to derive results. Soon the MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation released its own version of NASTRAN called MSC/NASTRAN.

In 2002 an antitrust case was issued against the MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation because of the alleged monopoly of the FEA industry after the acquisitions of Universal Analytics, Inc. and Computerized Structural Analysis ...
... and Research Corporation. The Federal Trade Commission ruled that the MSC NASTRAN code had to release their source code to the UGS Corporation (Now Siemens PLM).

The only other current vendor of NASTRAN is NEi Nastran, located in Garden Grove CA. NEi is currently working on advance structural analysis solutions and has quickly become a preferred flavor of NASTRAN.

Since the space race, NASTRAN has been adopted into many other industries. NASTRAN has been used in the automotive and shipbuilding industries extensively. More recently, smaller manufacturers of bicycles, skiing equipment and other sporting goods have used NASTRAN in their design and analysis practices.

The reason why NASTRAN and finite element analysis has been so popular in the design and fabrication process is because it reduces the time to market a product. By doing finite element analysis on computers, engineers can quickly build prototypes that withstand their lifecycle loads without having to do extensive physical testing. In addition, having simulated models of their products already stored on computers, allows manufacturers to quickly enhance and come out with future models and new product lines.

Compared to the early versions of NASTRAN from the 1960s, today NASTRAN is much easier to use. It wasn't until recently that NASTRAN could only be operated on large UNIX based super computers. Now, NASTRAN can be installed on desktop PCs and run locally. This has made licensing the software much easier for NASTRAN software companies.

There are other types of structural analysis software on the market. Some of these brands include: Algor, Ansys, Abaqus and Marc. However only MSC Nastran, NX Nastran and NEi Nastran use the industry standard NASTRAN code. Some experts say this gives these versions of structural analysis software and advantage because of NASTRAN's long history of being an engineering industry standard.

Finite element analysis has come a long way in the past 70 years. This engineering analysis practice started as a paper and pencil solution and now has become a standard pc based analysis tool. Computers have allowed finite element analysis go in three dimensions and has cut analysis time as well. Thanks to this NASA inspired effort, society has now benefitted from safer and more efficient products.
Wade Knoxville
saratechinc.com