Things to Avoid with FEA

摘要

What follows is a short list of things that should not get through to review stage: 1. Stress averaging switched on in plots. They may hide real peaks, poor mesh and be un-conservative. 2. von Mises stresses only in global views. We want to know what is happening throughout the structure, and at key points what the stress state is (tension, compression, shear, bending, axial, etc.). This takes more than a single plot. 3. No overall load balance summary-what went in, what came out. 4. No summary of checks carried out on element quality, numerical solution accuracy, etc.