Finite Element Consultant Engineers
Finite Element Consultant Engineers at Clearhand have added open source Linux based computer aided engineering to build upon and improve their existing FEA and Analysis knowledge and skills.
Open source software provides an open engineering development platform for CAE, FEA and CFD, the best part is that it’s free to use with no licence required.
Onshape
For commercial CAD work we use Onshape, as Onshape is cloud based and provides a very flexible system with best in class collaboration tools.
Any geometry produced can then be used with open-source CAE software like Salomé-Meca and Code-Aster, where a finite element mesh can be generated for a multiphysics simulation, which can be used to further optimise our designs.
Nearly all physical problems can be addressed, including seriously complex physics such as :-
- non-linear
- coupled fluid-structure
- dynamics
- contact
- plasticity
- heat transfer
All results can then be post processed in 3D, using Salomé, GMSH or Paraview to control and visualize the data.
In order to both learn and test the open source software many test examples are used.
Some of which are real life engineering problems that have been solved previously and have known answers.
Some are from well known engineering sources such as Roark’s “Formulas for Stress and Strain” and Timoshenko’s “Strength of Materials”
As work through the test samples progresses, the more interesting problems together with the solutions will begin to appear on the blog.
