The Finite Element Method (FEM) – A

Beginner's Guide

Jousef Murad • 16 min read

A simple introduction to the Finite Element Method (FEM), how a Finite Element Analysis
(FEA) workflow looks like and how it is used in the industry.

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Introduction Become a Member
 What is the Finite Element Method? 🤔
History & Background 📜
Motivation 💪
Numerical Methods 🧮
Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) 📝
Basic Boundary Conditions in FEA 🧱
Geometric (Essential) Boundary Conditions 📐
Force (Natural) Boundary Conditions 💪
Approach of the FEM 💻
Divide & Conquer 🚀
FEA Workflow 💡
Part 1 – Geometry 📐
Part 2 – Material & Boundary Conditions 🔗
Part 3 – Discretisation ("Meshing") 🖥
Part 4 – Solving the System of Equations  🖥
Part 5 – Post-Processing 🎨
Part 6 – Iteration ↩️
FEA Capabilities 🚀
Advantages of FEM 📈
Disadvantages of FEM 📉
Finite Element Method - Trends 🚀
The Finite Element Method - A Beginner's Guide 🎬

Introduction
If you haven’t been hiding under a stone during your engineering studies, you
should have heard about the Finite Element Method (FEM). And maybe you even
learned some of its practical aspects by playing around with software packages
such as ANSYS, ABAQUS or SimScale. Become a Member
In this blog, I am going to introduce the Finite Element Method without any
heavy mathematical explanations and it is by no means a course on FEM - this
is reserved for future posts.
FEM Courses – Waiting List 🧠

Generally speaking, the finite element method (FEM) is a numerical method

used to perform a finite element analysis (FEA) of any given physical
phenomenon to predict the behaviour of a structure.

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What is the Finite Element Method? 🤔

For the vast majority of geometries and problems, Partial Differential Equations
cannot be solved with analytical approaches. Instead, we can approximate
these equations using discretisation methods that can be solved using
numerical methods.
Therefore, the solutions we get are also an approximation of the real solution to
those PDEs. The FEM is such an approximation method that subdivides a
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complex space or domain into a number of small, countable, and finite amount
of pieces (thus the name finite elements) whose behaviour can be described
with comparatively simple equations.

Finite Element Simulation of a Gear Shaft

The method was originally developed for engineering analysis to model and
analyse complex systems in mechanical, civil, and aeronautical engineering. The
basics of the method can be derived from Newton's laws of motion,
conservation of mass and energy, and the laws of thermodynamics.
FEM can be used, for example, to determine the structural mechanics of
different parts of a car under different loading conditions, the heat flow through
engine part, or the distribution of electromagnetic radiation from an antenna.
An important aspect of FEM is how the Computer-aided design (CAD) model is
prepared for the analysis and is being subdivided during meshing (discretisation
into smaller elements). Become a Member
CAD software such as Creo can be used to define 3D shapes of an object and
then imported into a separate FEA tool which subdivides the object into
appropriately sized elements according to the desired boundary conditions or
mesh.

Example of a Finite Element Mesh

History & Background 📜

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Gilbert Strang on the Finite Element Method

Podcast With Gilbert Strang 🎙️

The term Finite Element was introduced 1960 by Ray William Clough  in his
paper "The Finite Element Method in Plane Stress Analysis". In the early 60s
this method has been used by several engineers for stress analysis, fluid
transport, heat transport and other subjects
The first Finite-Element-Method book has been published by Olgierd
Zienkiewicz, Richard Lawrence Taylor and Jianzhong Zhu
In the late 60s and 70s the field of FEM application expanded and became a
leading numerical approximation in a broad field of engineering problems
Most commercial codes like ANSYS, ABAQUS, Adina and several others have
their origin in the 1970s
John Swanson releases the first version of his so-called ANalysis SYStems
(ANSYS) FEA software tool (1970)
A web search (2006) for ‘finite element’ using Google yielded over 14 million
pages compared to 2022 with 128 million pages
The number of papers have gone from one (1956) to more than a million
(2022)
FEM systems at Mercedes in the early beginnings have been solved using
punchcards (see video below)
A 15 minute introduction to the FEM in German👇
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 0:00 / 16:36 1×
Source: CADFEM

Motivation 💪
Engineers use the finite element method for several good reasons. One of them
being is that analytical models are limited in their application. This is the case if
we have:
complex geometries or deformation (e.g. crash testing)
complex loadings (e.g. time dependent force application)
complex material laws such as:
1. Anisotropic material law (fibre-reinforced plastic or crystalline material)
2. Inhomogeneous material properties (Young’s modulus…) Become a Member
3. Hyperelastic material
and many more...

Numerical Methods 🧮
In general, there are three methods on how engineers are able to solve
engineering problems.
1. Classical Methods
2. Numerical Methods
3. Experimental Methods
Whenever engineers solve complex problems involving complex geometries,
loading conditions or material laws, they cannot use classical analytical
approaches using closed-form methods. Therefore numerical methods offer a
way to solve a problem where an analytical solution does not exist!
A closed form solution is an expression for an exact solution given with a
finite amount of data.

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 Classical vs. Numerical Methods

Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) 📝

The description of nature and the laws of physics for space- and time-
dependent problems are usually expressed with partial differential equations
(PDEs). These equations are solved in an approximate manner by the finite
element method (FEM) which is based on equations of classical methods such
as the Theory of Elasticity.
PDEs are equations for an unknown function of two or more independent
variables that involves partial derivatives. Below is an example of a PDE, namely
the three-dimensional Laplace equation where
ϕ

is the dependent variable, and x, y, and z are the spatial independent variables.
∂2ϕ ∂2ϕ ∂2ϕ
+ 2 + 2 = 0 
∂x2 ∂y ∂z
​ ​ ​

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In order to solve this equation, it must be subjected to so-called initial
conditions and boundary conditions.
An Initial Boundary Value Problem (IBVP) consists of the Partial Differential
Equation the Initial Conditions as well as the Boundary Conditions
👉 Initial Boundary Value Problem = PDE + ICs + BCs
Other examples of famous PDEs are:
Navier-Stokes Equations
Schrödinger's Equation
Heat Equation
Maxwell's Equations
Wave Equation

Basic Boundary Conditions in FEA 🧱

Generally speaking, boundary conditions (BCs) are constraints necessary for the
solution of a boundary value problem.
A boundary value problem is a differential equation (or system of differential
equations) to be solved in a domain on whose boundary a set of conditions is
known. Compared to the "initial value problem", in which only the conditions on
one extreme of the interval are known. Boundary value problems are extremely
important as they model a vast amount of phenomena and applications, from
solid mechanics to heat transfer, from fluid mechanics to acoustic diffusion.
They arise naturally in every problem based on a differential equation to be
solved in space, while initial value problems usually refer to problems to be
solved in time.
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Generally speaking, boundary conditions for continuous systems are classified
as being of two types.
Geometric (Essential) Boundary Conditions
Natural Boundary Conditions

Geometric (Essential) Boundary Conditions 📐

Those BCs also known as Kinematic Boundary Conditions must be satisfied
according to geometric constraints. For example:
u(x = 0) = 0 & u′ (x = 0) = 0

at a fixed end of a cantilever.

This boundary condition can be a "fixed BC" in your FEA tool and constraints a
shaft and its position in space
Boundary conditions which are related to the geometry, are called geometric
boundary conditions

Force (Natural) Boundary Conditions 💪

Those BCs also known as Static Boundary Conditions must be satisfied as a
result of free and moment balances. For example:
δ2 u
EI 2 (x = L) = 0
​

δx

is a moment boundary condition at the free end of a cantilever. So, it is

prescribed by forces and moments.
This is the boundary condition is prescribed as a load acting on your
component Become a Member
 Boundary conditions which are related to loadings, are called force boundary
conditions

Approach of the FEM 💻

From a mathematical point of view, the following five steps are essential to
know in order to understand how the FEM is working behind the scenes.
Step #1
Create geometry (CAD Model)
Define material properties
Choose initial and boundary conditions
Define other conditions such as contact behaviour
Discretisation of the geometry 👉 "Meshing"
Pre-Processing, also called model preparation, is usually the most labor-
intensive step of FEA.
Step #2
Element formulation 👉 development of equations for elements
Set up the partial differential equation in its weak form
Step #3
Assembly: Set up global problem 👉 obtaining equations for the entire system
from the equations for one element
Step #4
Solving system of linear equations
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Step #5
Post-Processing: determining quantities of interest, such as stresses and strains
and obtaining visualisations of the response
Hint: The solver may produce impressive, colourful results which may look
convincing but can be completely useless. Try to compare your solution with
analytical results (if available), perform a proper convergence study and/or
compare your results with existing papers / literature.
There are obviously more points to check when validating and correlating your
FEA results which will be covered in another post. For now you only have to
know not to trust your results and you have to employ methods to go through a
meticulous verification and validation process for every analysis.
In the section on FEA Workflow, we will have a look at a more granular level of
how FEA works. In practise, you are neither really busy thinking about how the
matrix is assembled, nor do you care how the system of equations are solved
which is just a bunch of number crunching behind the scenes.

Divide & Conquer 🚀

A characteristic feature of the finite element method is that instead of seeking
the approximation over the entire region, the region is divided into smaller parts,
so called finite elements and the approximation is then carried out over each
element.
The collection of all small parts is called the finite elements.
When the type of approximation has been chosen (is to be applied over each
element), the corresponding behaviour of each element can then be
determined. Having determined the behaviour of all single elements, the
elements can then be patched together (Matrix Assembly), which enables us to
get an approximate solution of the entire body over the entireBecome
domain.a Member
As we mentioned before, we need to approximate a solution over our elements
in order to determine the behaviour. This approximation is usually a polynomial
and is, in fact, some interpolation over the element. This means we know some
values at certain points within the element but not at every point. These ‘certain
points’ are called nodal points and are often located at the boundary of the
element. The accuracy with which the variable changes is expressed by the
approximation, which can be linear, quadratic, cubic et cetera.
In order to get a better understanding of approximation techniques, we will look
at a one-dimensional bar. Consider the true temperature distribution T(x) along
the bar in the picture below.
Equidistant grids can waste many nodes in areas where the solution is not
important or changes in quantities (gradients) are insignificant.

Temperature Distribution Along a Rod

The nodal points we chose do not need to be equally spaced! We now divide our
bar into four elements over which the temperature is assumed to vary in a linear
manner between each nodal point!

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Divide & Conquer in Action - Dividing the Rod into Smaller Elements

Elementwise Temperature Distribution

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 Temperature Distribution Using Linear Approximation
Well we see linear approximation is quite good, but we can certainly do better! If
we chose a quadratic approximation the temperature distribution along the bar
is way more smooth.

Linear vs. Quadratic Approach

Nevertheless, we see that irrespective of the polynomial degree the distribution
over the fin is known once we know the values at the nodal points, simple as
that. If we just have one bar we would have an infinite amount of unknowns
(Degree of Freedom (DoF)). But in this case we have a problemBecome
with aaMember
finite
number of unknowns.
 A system with a finite number of unknowns is called a discrete system
A system with an infinite number of unknowns is called a continuous system
In our case we would have a system consisting of five equations which can be
solved by hand but in general we have thousands and thousands of unknowns.
Luckily we have powerful machines at our fingertips allowing us to solve such
problems for us which makes life way easier.

FEA Workflow 💡
In general, the FEA workflow can be broken down into
1. Pre-Processing
2. Processing
3. Post-Processing
Pre-processing is performed to create the model, generate an appropriate finite
element grid, apply the appropriate boundary conditions, and view the total
model.
Processing refers to the number crunching part behind the scenes.
Post-processing provides visualisation of the computed results and gives
meaning to the hundreds of numbers that could otherwise not be interpreted by
any human being.

Part 1 – Geometry 📐
This is the part where you import your CAD model. Ideally, allBecome
redundant parts of
a Member
the part that do not contribute to the analysis or require excessive model setup
have been removed
CAD modeling is used by many designers to create elaborate computerized
models of objects before they are physically produced.

Step 1 - Import your CAD Model

In general, there are two ways on how to create or import CAD models,
depending on which FEA software you're using.
Directly Import CAD: A very common solution is that your FEA tools allows
you to import CAD models. Obviously, this assumes that you already have a
model available and modelled in your CAD software (Creo, Solidworks etc.).
There are tools such as ABAQUS that allow you to create your geometry inside
the tool itself.
Create CAD Inside the Tool: This is a method that can be used assuming that
your tool of choice allows creating a CAD model from scratch.

Part 2 – Material & Boundary Conditions 🔗 Become a Member

The definition of material and boundary conditions (BCs) can usually be
captured at once .

Step 2 - Define Material and Boundary Conditions

Material Definition: In this step, you have to define what material you will be
using and define at the very minimum the Young's modulus, the Poisson's ratio
and material density. Once the basics are done, you can even decide what
material laws shall be applied such as linear elastic behaviour or if the material
will have plastic behaviour.
Material nonlinearity involves the nonlinear behaviours of material based on
current deformation, temperature, pressure and so on. Some nonlinear material
models are large strain, stress-strain relationship, elastoplasticity, plasticity,
creep and hyperelasticity.
Boundary Conditions (BCs): This is one of the most complicated topics in FEA
as you have to decide how the real life conditions can be translated into a
digital representation without simplifying it too much. Trust me, this is way
trickier than you think it is!
As a beginner, you can be quite sure that you will mess up boundary conditions
very often as you not only have to understand how BCs can be used in your
model but also how the software is treating each BC. Become a Member
 Loads: Loads can be forces, moments, accelerations or even temperature
loads on your components.
Contacts: Bodies can be connected to each other via common nodes. These
connections are only possible if the two bodies have the same mesh at the
interface.
Contact is one type of nonlinearity of the system. An abrupt change in stiffness
may occur when bodies come into or out of contact with each other. This is a
result of the changing nature of the contact between components in the
analysis during motion.

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Part 3 – Discretisation ("Meshing") 🖥

Meshing is an interesting but also difficult topic which has many aspects to
consider. Personally, CAD cleanup is the most tedious part whereas other
engineers will say that meshing is the worst job for them - it's up to you to
decide!
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 Step 3 - Meshing the Geometry
The following questions have to be answered when meshing:
What element types do I choose? (TET vs. HEX - 1D, 2D or 3D?)
Do I choose first order elements or second order elements?
How do I know that my mesh is fine enough? 👉 Convergence Study
Do I have to mesh finer in certain regions?
Often, critical stresses are limited to small areas of a model. When a global mesh
refinement is used, the resulting mesh is often too fine in areas that are not
relevant for the evaluation process.
A more efficient approach is to refine the mesh locally where critical stress
regions are located. FEA tools often allow you to use Local Mesh Refinements
that provide a targeted mesh refinement.

Part 4 – Solving the System of Equations  🖥

The solver is now doing a bunch of number crunching on a system of equations
behind the scenes of the FE model. Systems of equations with more than 10
million equations are not uncommon but also not unsolvable considering how
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fast and efficient modern codes and machines are.
The first result of includes the displacements of the individual nodes. In
subsequent steps, distortions, stresses as well as nodal forces can be
calculated. In addition to mechanical quantities, thermal, electrical or magnetic
quantities can also be calculated if a thermo-mechanical or electromagnetic
solver is used.
An equation that you should know about is
{F } = [K]{u}

which is the standard equation for the FEM where

{F} are the forces acting on the structure
[K] is the stiffness matrix
{u} are the displacements
You will see in another blog post, that if we only have a look at a linear spring
element to derive the fundamental equation for the FEM, the rows of the
stiffness matrix are linearly dependent which means that the system is
statically underdetermined!
We have to integrate boundary conditions into the system, otherwise our solver
will end up with an error.
Whenever we apply external forces and calculate displacements, this is called
a Displacement-based procedure
Whenever we apply displacements and calculate the forces, this is called a
Force-based procedure

Part 5 – Post-Processing 🎨 Become a Member

Post-Processing is the part where the numbers from the solver are taken and
made interpretable for the engineers - otherwise we would have a hard time
decoding what all those numbers actually mean.
It is important to know it is not sufficient to simply accept the beautiful images
that the machine throws at you. You need to take your engineering knowledge
and intuition and really think hard if the results actually make sense and are
physically accurate.
GIGO = Garbage In equals Garbage Out

Step 5 - Post-Processing of the Results (v. Mises stress in MPa shown)

Part 6 – Iteration ↩️
Simple doing one analysis and looking at the plots won't do the job. FEA is an
iterative process which requires an engineer to make adaptations to the model,
fix boundary conditions and potentially perform several meshes to see if there
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are no significant changes in stresses or other relevant output quantities the
finer we discretise our domain.
If no convergence can be seen, this can be an issue of a so-called singularity.
A finite element model will sometimes contain a so-called singularities which
means that there are points in your model where values (such as stresses) tend
towards an infinite value.
In the worst case, you have to go back to Step 1 and adapt your CAD model.

FEA Capabilities 🚀
FEA can be applied to different types of single or multiphysics problems
involving heat transfer, fluid dynamics, electric fields and more. Three main
types of problems are:
Static: For example, structural analysis of different parts of a building or
bridge when a certain load is applied with no motion involved. Knowing what
parts experience the highest stress tells the designers what parts need to be
strongest
Dynamic: Useful when the forces applied to the system change over time, for
example, heat flow through a system component
Modal: Useful in analysing the effects of vibration on a system

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 Stress Distribution of a Rack and Pinion Gear
Over the years, more "exotic" topics in FEA have emerged:
Extended FEM (XFEM): The word extended is added as the method enhances
crack-propagation simulation capability of the conventional finite elements
formulation. This method is useful when analysing systems with
discontinuities, such as fractures; and answers questions how a system
behaves when one or several components have a crack or other defects.
Generalised FEM (GFEM): Combines traditional mesh-based FEM with more
advanced "meshless" methods. It combines the features of the traditional FEM
and meshless methods. One of the advantages of GFEM is the prevention of
re-meshing around singularities.
Mixed FEM: Useful for problems involving contact or incompressibility, and
where constraints are imposed using Lagrange multipliers. These extra
degrees of freedom arising from Lagrange multipliers are solved
independently. The system of equations is solved like a coupled
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equations.
 hp-FEM: hp-FEM is a combination of automatic mesh refinement (h-
refinement) and an increase in the order of polynomial (p-refinement). It is
however not the same as doing h- and p- refinements separately. The method
is used when certain elements in a system are further subdivided (in a
process called mesh refinement), and the polynomial equations of each
element have different orders.
Discontinuous Galerkin FEM: DG-FEM has shown significant promise for
utilising the idea of finite elements to solve hyperbolic equations, where
traditional finite element methods have been weak. Used to analyse systems
in which components bend and for incompressible problems which are
typically observed in most material processes.

Advantages of FEM 📈
1. Modelling of complex geometries and irregular shapes are easier as varieties
of finite elements are available for the discretisation of the domain
2. Different types of material properties can be easily accommodated, either
from element-to-element or even inside an element
3. Higher order elements may be implemented if the tools allow it
4. FEM is simple, well-defined and result-oriented and widely popular among an
enthusiastic engineering community that can help you whenever you run into
problems
5. The availability of a large number of FEA software packages and literature
makes FEM a versatile and powerful, and accessible numerical method

Disadvantages of FEM 📉
Although FEM is an incredibly powerful method, there are however some
drawbacks.
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1. Simplification of real life components can’t be 100% exact for complex
shapes
2. FEM is an approximate method and engineers are motivated to minimise the
error over the whole domain
3. Although FEM is simple from its principles, the mathematics behind the FEM
is relatively advanced, and thus requires mathematical expertise for its
implementation
4. The computation is very costly in FEM. As your mesh becomes finer, you will
need more RAM. Almost all FEM packages use the concept of bandwidth
reduction to reduce the amount of memory needed to store the stiffness
matrix
5. The time needed for solving a FE problem increases with the degree of
fineness of the mesh
6. Proper engineering judgement is needed to interpret results

Finite Element Method - Trends 🚀

Various applications of the FEM prove that this technique is of great value as it
provides a means with which engineers can create efficient designs for large
and complex problems, which cannot be solved using analytical methods.
The FEA process incorporates many complex steps and involves numerous
parameters which can be tweaked by the user. Thanks to the democratisation of
FEA, software is much more streamlined, easy to integrate into engineering R&D
processes and much more affordable to every engineer, designer and smaller
enterprises.
In the future, the use and availability of cloud-enabled services such as
SimScale will be intensified during design projects. The past and present of
mathematical modelling and FEA software is a success story which will be
enhanced using Artificial Intelligence (AI) marking a significantBecome
step ina Member
FEA
history.
Not only will engineers have to do less effort, but the analyses will be more
accurate and faster augmenting the whole product development process from
conception to prototyping. This allows engineers to be more creative in the
design process and focus less on tuning sensitive FE parameters.

The Finite Element Method - A Beginner's

Guide 🎬

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