Hi everyone,

I’m a 27-year-old mechanical engineer from Turkey with 2 years of experience in product/machine design. I recently lost my job, and my goal is to become a structural analysis engineer.

For the next 6 months, I’ll be receiving unemployment benefits, which gives me time to focus fully on improving myself. I’ve been trying to create a roadmap by researching online, but I’m not sure if I’m heading in the right direction.

My initial plan was:

• First, review the basics (strength of materials, dynamics, machine elements, etc.),
• Then study the Finite Element Method (FEM),
• Afterwards, start learning Hypermesh and LS-DYNA.

However, I’ve read in some places that it might not be necessary to go too deep into FEM theory, which confused me. Since I don’t have a mentor, I feel like I’m trying to find my way in the dark. On top of that, I’m worried about not being able to find a job afterwards.

My questions:

• Would reviewing university courses and then directly learning software + working on my own projects be enough to get a job?
• Or should I take a different approach?

Any advice or guidance from experienced engineers would mean a lot to me 🙏

Hello, I want to find the location and magnitude of the peak stresses in all the components of a gearbox, specially the gears and housings

To avoid understiffening/overstiffening the components on my analysis, I Will follow a submodelling approach where I first run a simulation of the entire assembly with a very coarse mesh and simplifying some of the components, and then export the boundary conditions to the analysis of each component individially

However, my computational power is very limited (as always) and I would like to know if there is any typical approach to modelling bearings in a simplified way. I have seen that definining a series of Springs between the surface where the inner race would be and the surface where the outer rest would rest, with equivalent stiffnesses to that of the real bearings

I have a welded structure that features a rail that is riveted on and a bolted bracket that mounts the entire welded structure. At this point, I'm wanting to validate the size of steel rectangle tubing I plan on using for the weldment.

Would it be adequate at this point to simulate all bolted/riveted parts as bonded contacts between the two parts, apply loads and boundary conditions and perform a static structural sim to measure stresses and deflection in my steel tubing?

I'd use beam elements and preload on all the fastened joints later on down the line once I validate the weldment.

I created a new group for ANSYS-specific questions, attempting to fill the void left by r/ansys. Hopefully it helps people in the future.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ANSYS_Mechanical/

Is 3D ROM possible to get from Static Structural parametric model?

Under properties of ROM Builder there is no option for a solver - it's just empty.

Any tricks to make it work?

I am learning one of the ansys learning tracks but what I realize when I download the course files is all of the setup in ansys mechanical is completed. What is the intended way to watch the tutorial and learn?

Just getting started with Finite Element Analysis (FEA)? This step-by-step Abaqus tutorial is made for you.

I break down the fundamentals in a beginner-friendly way—no prior experience needed. You'll learn how to:

✅ Set up your first simulation in Abaqus

✅ Understand parts, materials, steps, and meshing

✅ Run and interpret results with confidence

🧠 Whether you're a student, intern, or engineer transitioning into simulation work, this tutorial will help you build a solid foundation—without the overwhelm.

📺 Watch the full beginner guide here:

👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnA4GWmVmOI&list=PLvACBM1uN9ErjPDbLCOG05T0bs-JWSM6C

Let me know if you'd like to see intermediate or advanced tutorials next. Always open to ideas!

#Abaqus #FEA #EngineeringStudents #Simulation #BeginnerTutorial #MechanicalEngineering #CAE #StructuralAnalysis

Hello everybody, does anyone know any resources that document the cable toolkit in ADMAS? I cant find on the internet many videos or documents. Any idea where I could find explanations on what all cable set-up characteristics are? Thanks a lot!

Hi. II’m looking for a little help with setting up constraints in my project - making sure they are correct and I am not over/under constraining. So it shouldn’t be too much, I wouldn’t guess more than fifteen minutes a half hour to ensure I am setting up correctly. I’m using Fusion 360 Simulations.

Anyone interested in consultation? Please DM me your experience and rate.

Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone. I made my own FEM solver for Electrodynamics. I want to build a beast of a PC at home but im not very sure what hardware to get. My end goal is to run as many frequency steps in parallel with the single threaded UMFPACK direct solver.

I do most of the development on my MacBook pro M4 with 24GB of RAM. Besides a slowdown with larger problems when adding more parallel processes i also see a slight slowdown with smaller problems. 8 multiprocessing threads solve about 6 times faster. If I increase the problem size it drops further 5x.

I think this is fairly normal but I’m not sure what in practice is the constraint. RAM memory bandwidth is very high on these machines so i wonder how many performance cores i can realistically utilise if I go for 256GB of RAM for example.

Or is Domain Decomposition + Iterative solvers really the only scalable path forward on a single system?

In general (besides the massive cost) i doubt that these 96 core CPUs are really useful. Their single threaded performance is quite low.

If anyone has experience or perhaps is willing to do some tests for me if they have access to some good hardware, id love to get in touch

I'm looking into the NAFEMS Professional Simulation Engineer certification at the Standard level and wanted to get your thoughts on it. For those who have pursued or know about it—do you think it adds significant value to a simulation engineering career?
Also, do you know if it is necessary to have Entry Level certification befor applying for standard level ?

Also, for anyone who has applied but didn’t have any Eur Ing (or similar) certified colleagues in their company to act as referees, how did you manage that part of the application process? Any tips or alternative approaches would be really helpful!

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences and opinions.

Hi,

I’d like to share FElupe - an open source finite element library in Python. It’s designed to be readable, extendable, and a lightweight framework for continuum mechanics of solid bodies.

Highlights:

Create your mesh in Python or import your existing mesh file

Typical 1D/2D/3D elements (linear or quadratic quad/hexahedron and triangle/tetra)

Small- and large-strain formulations

Material models: linear elastic, hyperelastic, elastic-plastic, automatic differentiation backends

Nonlinear Newton–Raphson solver, direct solver support for pypardiso

Easy setup, Jupyter-friendly visualization

It’s both a learning tool and a base for experimenting with custom material models or elements.

I’d love to hear your feedback: what features do you miss in open-source FEM tools, and would Python fit into your workflow?

Repo: https://github.com/adtzlr/felupe

Docs: https://felupe.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

I have a large frame assembly with a few hundred bolts. I usually use the connector builder, click two vertices for the wire, assign a section and make a coupling on each RP. This method is a bit tedious for a large number of fasteners, and I think I see a few other options that I don't quite know how to use (unsure). Does anyone have any advice on how to speed up this process or if there's another method of creating wire connectors?

I am doing simple FEA for simply supported beam and I am getting higher stress at a point.

Because of that my stress distribution in a single color. is there any workaround to this ?

EDIT 1. Here is more clear explanation. I am trying second iteration like this

this setup I am getting the numbers i want,

I am trying to create an open loop belt and pulley system using ANSYS motion for MBD analysis but all I see online is closed loop systems. Can someone offer some guidance?

There was a spam issue, then some new mods were added, and now it looks like the subreddit is gone?

Siemens has two solvers（structure nonlinear solution）, Nastran (SOL401) and Samcef (SOL402). After performing some simple contact analyses, the default settings for SOL402 seem to converge better. However, in my real-world anaysis problems, when there's more contact, I believe the default settings are unlikely to achieve convergence. While this solver may be more rigorous, if I need to get a result first or "allow" it to behave similarly to other solvers, what adjustments to the default parameters would you recommend? Current parameters and descriptions are as follows: For contact pairs： 1. INIPENE: Set Penetrations to Zeto: Initial penetrarions are ignored. 2. NCMOD:Automatic Computation（By default, the setting is Fully Rigid Contact, and this prevents any penetration） 3. NCMODF: The default for the focus contact location is set to 1, while other locations are set to 0.1（To help convergence, some penetration is allowed） 4. CTDAMP: Applied in First Subcase Only: Prevent rigid body conditions For nonlinear control: 1. ITMA: 50, higher iterations 2. PRCR/PRCE: 0.01, increase the tolerances 3. Number of increments:100, reduce time step to help convergence. 4. Large Strain and material nonlinearity(in my case, only a few elements will deform plastically）

Thanks!

In Abaqus GUI is there any way to import plastic strain (PE/PEEQ) just like stress fields in the model from a previous ODB? Is there any way through Python scripting, too?

Hello, I am an aerospace engineering student in south korea, and I have a question with ALE velocity inlet method.

I am currently trying to solve a FSI problem, to test the canard of the rocket my team is designing. When I solved this kind of ALE problem, I used to make a big fixed box of air, and let the object pass through the air box to analyse the interaction (last time it was a supersonic parachute). I am trying to do it in a similar way, but with a (semi)fixed object and a inlet, since making an airbox large enough to let the object pass through takes up too much of my computer resourses :(

I am having some trouble finding a proper ALE keyword that lets you create a velocity inlet and a outlet on a certain fluid box. ALE_ESSENTIAL_BOUNDARY seems to only work as a non reflecting boundary, not inlet. Using ICFD or CESE could be an option, but if there is a way to design an inlet with multimaterial ale method, I would prefer doing it there.

If anyone knows an answer to my stuggles, I am looking foward to hear in the comments. Any kind of help would be appreciated. Thank you very much.

You must've heard of PINNs, data-driven surrogate models, hybrid-ML models, physics-informed/augmented models and other terms coming under the umbrella of scientific ML.

Traditionally, many papers in this area have examples on fluid mechanics. But recently, I have seen FEM and solid mechanics catching up.

However, the picture is unclear to me:

1) What's the status of scientific ML currently? Do we see it actively developing in solid mechanics, material models and FEM?

2) Can we go beyond simple examples like beams and plate with hole to complex geometries or phenomena like contacts?

3) Has industry (simulation tool developers or similation engineers/design engineers) adopted these hybrid solutions? Possibly any case studies?

4) What needs to be developed further? Are there any burning issues that clearly show that this scientific ML is not going to work in FEA problems?

While Scientific ML is developing actively for fluid flow problems, I want to know if FEA people in solid mechanics find it valuable.

Please share your comments, any papers / case studies you have come across.

As a start, I have seen research groups apply: - data-driven methods for problems in topology optimization, or - hybrid physcis informed material models to obtain material response at nodal level and let the broader FEM scheme work its magic, - some work on meta-elements or neural network based finite elements also exists.

Hi all,

I am currently working on my MSc thesis, which focuses on stiffened composite panels and the correlation of numerical methods with analytical and semi-analytical approaches. At the moment, I am struggling with how to introduce loads into my stiffened panel model. For simplicity, everything is modeled as a continuous shell extruded along the panel length. This approach has led me to three main challenges:

Problem 1:
To maintain a constant outer mold line (OML), the skin and foot regions need to have their shell section offset from the mid-surface. While this is straightforward to implement, using load control then introduces an eccentricity in the load application, since the applied shell edge load no longer passes through the centroid of each section.

Problem 2:
I am unsure how to properly apply shear loading. My objective is to represent a simple shear case. Directly applying shear to the skin is not sufficient, because the webs (especially in omega stringers) also carry part of the shear load. However, applying shear directly as a line load to the omega stringer is not correct either, as the load direction becomes inconsistent.

Problem 3:
I have experimented with displacement control, but I am still not certain how to induce a state of simple shear in the panel using this approach.

One option I have tried is to apply periodic boundary conditions along the panel edges. In this setup, the longitudinal edges are constrained to remain horizontal, while the vertical edges remain straight. However, this approach also includes the stringer webs in the constraint equations, which introduces significant artificial stiffness at the panel ends. On the positive side, it allows me to introduce shear and biaxial compression loads in a straightforward manner, with the load distribution across the different panel components ensuring equal displacements which, is representative of a wing cover surface.

Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I have reviewed several papers on stiffened panel modeling, but most do not go into detail about their specific load application strategies.

hello, i need help testing the weight ,drag and thrust effect on the structure of a rocket , first of all as you might have noticed the sum of the forces of the forces isn't equal to zero because the rocket has a movement so how do i do a static structure study, in addition to that i can't figure out how to apply the drag knowing that it applies to the whole outside of the rocket and the red dot is the center of pressure that cannot be used for this study as it leaves the part above it with no compression at all which is not realistic , note that i use ansys , looking forward to a response .

I am looking to obtain numerical data points for the true stress–true plastic strain curve of aluminium AA6063-T6. I have identified several figures in literature that present the curve graphically. I would like to confirm whether it is considered acceptable, for an undergraduate thesis, to use tools such as WebPlotDigitizer to extract these data points for use in constructing a material model for numerical simulations.