Clint Musemeche |
Provides an explanation of (2) spreadsheets which have somewhat limited use.
Magnus Carlsson |
Very interesting. Great course. Thanks!!!
Rick VanSeters |
The course breaks down a difficult topic into pieces that are easily understood.
Jeffrey Birt |
VERY analytical, well-written and executed.
I was hoping to see how the FE method is created from scratch, but it only uses a pre-programmed spreadsheet. It is good, but when you use someone else's spreadsheet, even if it's a good one, it's still hard to navigate. I spent a bunch of time trying to debug my results (I did, eventually), but it's difficult when the programming is still somewhat inscrutable.
Nolan ONeal |
Good summary for those with a solid background - providing a useful tool for many basic applications
ERIC SATLER |
i will use these spreadsheets
Rodger Mourning Jr. |
Good examples using Excel. However, equation derivation could have been better.
David Weightman |
well written and understandable
Albert Dumas |
Could use a few examples in the theory section.
Timoteo Moreno |
I believe there is a glich on spreadsheet number 2. I had to make some adjustments to get some values correct but not all of the results matched the sample provided.
Sherman Bailey |
This was a pretty good course overall but the course handout has some typographical errors, for example the generalized element stiffness matrix presented on Page 22. WEBMASTER NOTE: Thank you for your review. We have contacted the SME and will make necessary updates to the course material.
Troy Jessop |
Nice class for structural engineers to have tools and a feel for checking designs.
Thomas Manning |
I found the course to interesting and informative.
R |
There's a lot to recommend this course and the approach it argues for (including the specific tool it provides in the form of its FE(A) spreadsheet for frame problems in structural engineering), but I think it merits some caveats, too.
The biggest caveat is that while the author argues that a lot of FEA problems can be solved with a software tool as simple as a spreadsheet, I think it's more accurate to say (and still within the spirit of what the author intended to say, I conjecture) that a lot of *instances* of certain classes of problems can be solved with a tool this simple. The author evidently has a long background as a structural engineer, analyzing trusses or frames for buildings and other structures, and this is what the course deals with.
Notably, the course and the tool it teaches cover only mechanical problems (i.e., no heat transfer, no electromagnetic field problems, etc.), within which it covers only solid systems (i.e., no computational fluid dynamics, etc.), within which it covers only static loading (i.e., no transient analysis, no modal analysis, no harmonic analysis, etc. -- which to me is an especially notable narrowing), within which it covers only descritized truss/beam structures (i.e., no shear plates, no shells, no domes, arches, etc., no monocoques, no wings, fins, blades, etc., no elements with continuously changing sections, etc.), within which it covers only 2-D/planar structures with a fairly small number of nodes. While it's true that an enormous amount of engineering labor must be spent on exactly this sort of very narrow problem class each year, I think that the narrowness of this application -- which the author acknowledges in the course material -- could be made clearer in the description of the course without any harm being done.
On the other hand, I think that the author's general attitude represents an emphasis on a number of important and indisputable principles which engineers ought to adhere to and keep in the forefront of their mind, especially when using flashy, expensive commercial FEA software: the engineer must always understand what's going on "under the hood" of their computational tools rather than treating or trusting those tools as a "black box"; computational results must be checked by independent methods; and tools ought to be shareable, transparent, and customizable (in no small part because those traits enable the previous desiderata). I even wish the author had dwelt *more* on the importance of externally confirming/validating computational results, both because I think it's a critical responsibility of engineers using computational tools, and because I think the spreadsheet tool taught in this course can probably be a very useful tool for performing that sort of confirmation of results generated by industrial software packages.
In conclusion, while I think the narrowness of this course's scope should be made clear, I do think this course well worth taking, and would recommend it to fellow engineers who use FEA tools, especially those who sometimes or often do FEA of statically-loaded truss or frame structures.
