Course Syllabus

MECH 417/517 Finite Element Analysis

Spring of 2008

General Information

Class hours: Tuesday & Thursday, 1:00 - 1:50 PM, MEB 241

Office hours: MWF 2:00 - 3:00 PM, & TT 2:30-3:00, MEB 221 or by appointment

web-site: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~mech517

Instructor

Prof. Ed Akin

Office: Mechanical Engineering Building, Room 221

Phone: (713) 348-4879

Email: akin@rice.edu

Course Description

PENDING

Recommended Textbook

G.R. Buchanan, Finite Element Analysis, McGraw-Hill, 1995.

Reference Books

J.E. Akin, Finite Elements Analysis with Error Estimators,Elsevier, 2005 http://www.mems.rice.edu/~akin/Elsevier/.

J.E. Akin, CosmosWorks Displayed: Theory & Applications,(Linked PDF), 2008 http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~mech403/DemoFiles/Cosmosworks_Displayed.pdf.

T.J.R. Hughes, The Finite Element Method, Dover, 2000.

Notation

On line http://www.mems.rice.edu/~akin/Elsevier/Notation.pdf

Grading

Homework 70%

Midterm Exam 15% (take-home)

Final Exam 15% (take home)

Homework Policy

Homework will be assigned on the last class of the week (usually Thursday). It will be due, in hardcopy form, on the last class of the following week (usually the next Thursday). Homework is meant as an exercise and you are encouraged to consult anyone (students, teaching assistants, me) and anything (notes, books, your own experiments) if it helps you to understand the material. However, you may not consult another person's solution to any given problem or solutions from past years.

Exam Policy

The midterm exam will be assigned on a Thursday and will be due at the beginning of the next Wednesday class. The final exam will be assinged on the last day of classes and due at the end of the finals period. Tests are taken under the Rice Honor Code system. You may only consult the textbook, any materials posted on the website, any software used in class, and any notes that you have personally taken. You may use a calculator, including programmable calculators. The test must be taken during a 3-hour period, with an optional single 30-minute break.

Course Calendar 2008

Jan 8 Introduction, FDM vs FEM

Jan 10 Introduction, Integral Forms

Jan 15 Cosmos Demonstration, Minimum Total Potential Energy Theorem

Jan 17 Minimum Total Potential Energy, Axial bar

Jan 22 Axial bar stiffness and mass matrices from PDE.

Jan 24 Simple harmonic motion. Natural frequencies.

Jan 29 Example Matlab source codes.

Jan 31 1D Heat transfer.

Feb 5 Hermite interpolation, cubic & quintic

Feb 7 Classic cubic beam

Feb 12 Beam on elastic foundation

Feb 14 Example Matlab quintic beams

Feb 19 Vector coordinate transformations

Feb 21 Planar truss, planar frame

Feb 26 Plane frames, review

Feb 28 Weighted Residuals, SPECIAL ROOM LECTURE, (Take Home Test, due 2 weeks)

Mar 3-7 No Class, Spring Break

Mar 11 Isoparametric interpolation, triangles

Mar 13 Isoparametric interpolation, quadrilaterals

Mar 18 Heat conduction & convection, 2D

Mar 20 Boundary matrix integration

Mar 25 3D interpolation. 3D heat transfer

Mar 27 General stress analysis

Apr 1 Plane stress

Apr 3 Plane strain. Surface traction integrals

Apr 8 Dynamics of solids

Apr 15 Transient heat transfer

Apr 17 Eigenvalue problems

Apr 22 Review (Take home final, due last day of finals, 5pm

Students with disabilities

Any student with a disability requiring accommodations in this course is encouraged to contact me after class or during office hours. Additionally, students should contact Disabled Student Services at the Ley Student Center.