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F.
J. Shih, R. E. Cornwell, “The Teaching of Finite
Element Analysis Course as an Undergraduate Elective,”
Poster Presentation (1888), 2005 American Society
of Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference
& Exposition, Portland, OR, (June 13, 2005)
The
Teaching of Finite Element Analysis Course
as an Undergraduate Elective
ABSTRACT
Finite
element analysis (FEA) is a powerful and increasingly
common design tool during of the product development
process. The teaching of FEA at the undergraduate
level, however, is an uneasy balancing act between
teaching the theoretical basis of FEA and its practical
application. There is a significant disconnect between
the theoretical and practical aspects of FEA, and
their relevance is rarely recognized by the students.
For example, if significant class time is devoted
to the theoretical development of FEA, students are
ill equipped to perform FEA when employed at the bachelor
level. However, if only FEA practices are taught using
commercial software, there is a danger of the course
becoming a software user course. Lastly, students
usually do not how to properly present FEA results
in written communications, something that is ignored
in similar curriculum. In this paper, the course content
for a senior level elective course at an undergraduate-only
mechanical engineering program is discussed. FEA is
taught using direct stiffness and weighted residual
methods. The application of FEA is first realized
in 1-D and 2-D problems in elasticity and heat transfer,
where students calculate by hand and by coding in
Matlab. Application of FEA using commercial codes
is also introduced with input from local industry. |
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