Customer Reviews

A First Course in Finite Elements

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a great book for introductory finite elements. All the basic and fundamental stuff is there. Too bad, though, that it's an almost word for word copy of the book by Ottosen and Petersson (1992!). And, as is often the case, the original is just that little bit better - so minus one star.

The book is intended as an introductory course on the finite element analysis for undergraduate and graduate students. It is written very clearly, so the material could be comprehended by the target audience. At the same time one of the chapters of the book is dedicated to the commercial finite element program, allowing students to understand how finite element method could be used for solving real life engineering problems. Student version of Abaqus is included in the book, which allows students to experience the entire process from creating a model to viewing and analyzing the results.

I found the book "A First Course in Finite Elements" very clearly
written and pedagogically sound. It has a very nice blend of theory and implementation of the finite element method written by two
leaders (J. Fish and T. Belytschko) in the field. It provides a
lucid and logical introduction to
(1) Direct approaches for discrete systems,
(2) Strong and weak forms for 1-D problems,
(3) Quadrature,
(4) FE formulation,
(5) Strong and weak forms for multidimensional scalar field problems,
(6) Approximations of trial solutions, weight functions,
(7) FE approximations for vector field equations and
(8) FE formulations for beams. The text is an excellent reference, that
will be added to the course syllabuses this year for both a senior
undergraduate Finite Element class and a first year graduate class that
I teach at UC Berkeley. The book provides a clear and concise introduction
and very well-thought-out overview, to this very large field, and I strongly recommend it to students and instructors that are looking for a modern introductory Finite Element textbook.

This book is an excellent introduction to FEM particularly for undergraduates, or anyone who were not previously exposed to FEM ideas. While there are a large number of books on FEM out there, many of them require quite a bit of understanding of continuum mechanics, pde solution methods, etc. and may easily overwhelm undergraduate audience. This book provides all the essentials needed to have a fundamental understanding of FEM and equally importantly, be able to write simple codes and use Abaqus to solve problems. The authors of the text are two of the best and most famous researchers in the subject, making the text all the more insightful.

This book is very well written by two top experts in the field. The authors clearly explain the theory and give practical examples that are easy to follow. The chapters are well organized leading the reader from structural analysis of trusses to multi-dimension problems in Elasticity. The last chapter (available on the web) contains MATLAB codes for the examples solved in the book which the reader can easily modify for his/her needs. On top, the book also comes with ABAQUS CD for students including a self contained tutorial.
All in all, I strongly recommend the book for first time readers. It is definitely worth the bang for the buck!

I bought this book based on the authors (Mr. Belytschko) reputation, having seen him make impressive presentations at various conferences. This book, however, is very dissapointing. Its the standard FEA theory rehashed and rolled out again - and not even presented well. There is nothing new or original about this book - there is little or no practical advice and the theory can be found in any other FEA book. Perhaps the only good thing about this book is that you get a studnet copy of Abaqus and one tutorial included, otherwise a waste of money.