PAPNUM (version 2.0) a finite element modeling and preprocessing system
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"Finite Element Method: Traditionally, the analysis of structural, heat transfer or fluid flow problems involved obtaining a solution to complex governing differential and/or integral equations. In the process of trying to obtain a solution, the engineer or analyst would sake modeling decisions in order to simplify the problem's mathematical formulation in hopes of obtaining a solution that would be adequate as an engineering design tool. Even then, many of the formulations were still too complex to obtain an effective mathematical solution. In many cases, the formulations were over simplified with the resulting solution being only a crude approximation. The quest for "better" solution techniques by the engineer and mathematician resulted in the emergence of a method powerful enough in scope to obtain solutions to engineering problems with many degrees of freedom and which posessed complex geometric shapes and boundary conditions. The basis for this method was a concept advanced by Courant C13 in 1943. His concept was that a physical problem did not require that the model and the solution be based on just the total mathematical domain but could be modeled and solved using a sequence of Interconnected finite sized subdomains. In the case of structural analysis, the mathematical domain corresponds to the total structure or continuum with the subdomains being finite sized structural elements. Although the method presented a new way to obtain a solution, the "Finite Element Method" was able to employ many known problem formulation and mathematical solution techniques from the fields of structural and continuum mechanics, calculus of variations and weighted residual methods. Independently of Courant, a group of structural engineers (Turner, Clough, Martin and Topp) in 1956 C20 developed the Finite Element Method with application to structural and continuum mechanics problems. The power of the Finite Element Method, stems from two distinct characteristics: 1. The ability to handle Irregularly shaped geometries, complex loadings and boundary conditions. 2. The method of formulation, which features a matrix format. These two features allow the Finite Element Method to utilize the speed and problem solving power of the digital computer, to analyze certain types of large and complex engineering systems which this study limits to structural system."--Introduction.
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