3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
If It Were Possible, I'd Give It 4 - 1/2 Stars!, February 14, 2007
This review is from: Pro/MECHANICA Tutorial Wildfire 2.0 (Paperback)
This is a very good introductory text on using Pro-E with the optional Mechanica structural and thermal (conduction) analysis package. The author, Toogood, begins with a light overview of the finite element theory (non-mathematical) and ties in the Mechanica application. He illustrates how to use the various types of analyses available in the FEA package by walking the reader through setting up a problem (pre-processing), activating the mesher and solver, and viewing the results (post-processing). The written procedures in the book are, for the most part, detailed, complete, and accurate. Mechanical, fluidic pressure, and thermal loadings are discussed and utilized. Optimization and modal analysis (determination of natural frequencies of a body) are also demonstrated. Typically, two (2) or three (3) problems are posed, pre-processed, and post-processed in some detail within each chapter. At the end of the chapter are review questions followed by a couple of problems for the reader to work on his own.
In general, this book does an excellent job of teaching the techniques of using the Mechanica application in a number of different problem scenarios. However not being a complete novice to FEA, I am unsure whether someone totally new to the field could get a sufficient understanding of the FEA background theory and limitations from this text alone. In other words, a reader might come away with the skills to setup and run an analysis, but not really understand the reasoning behind the application, the proper selection of pre-processor inputs, and finally the results. To this point, Toogood references the works of Paul Kurowski (among others) for a better understanding of the FEA technique. For those interested, Kurowski now has a book entitled, Finite Element Design for Engineers (ISBN: 0-7680-1140-X), which I found to be a useful companion to this text. If that is not enough, Toogood is available and relatively prompt and generous with assistance (through e-mail) for students with questions.
For those wondering how much modeling skill is required, the answer is not extensive. However, a basic familiarity with Pro-E is needed. Although they are mostly simple models, the reader is required to develop all models used in problems from scratch w/o much assistance from the author (though models can be downloaded from a website, according to the author). Since this book discusses only the integrated mode of operation of Mechanica w/ Pro-E, importing models made with applications other than Pro-E is not addressed and may lead to difficulties, especially for the novice user.
If I were to suggest improvements to this author they would be few, but would include providing answers to questions posed in the worked examples and at the end of chapters. In addition, it would be nice to be able to review his procedures and solutions for the reader problems at the end of the chapter (perhaps at a website). Inexplicably, the author does not include an index in the book either. This makes it tough to quickly review an individual subject or item later on. An advanced chapter or book on Mechanica would be a welcome addition.
The integrated mode of operation allows for rapid switching and similar GUI's between the solid modeler and FEA application. Nevertheless, there are a couple of gotcha's worth mentioning that plagued my work w/ Mechanica. It is relatively easy to create a solid model in Pro-E that cannot be readily or fully utilized by Mechanica. The optimization routine can fall victim to this problem. Without sufficient thought about what and how you will accomplish a task in Mechanica, some time saving techniques used in the sketching mode of Pro-E may not translate well into Mechanica either, making it impossible to select certain entities in the pre-processor. Idealizations used in certain cases won't work with this type of problem.
Finally, the user will want to double check all settings and selections in the pre-processing segment. If there is the slightest error in setting the boundary conditions (loads, constraints, and etc.), the results produced will probably not be correct for the real problem being modeled, i.e. the old "garbage in, garbage out" scenario. Always critically look at the output from the analysis. Does it make physical sense? If possible, compare some significant value from the post-processing to a quick, independent analytical check. It pays to be careful and cautious before accepting the results of any numerical analysis.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
