Computers back in the day, what value?
Computers back in the day, what value?
(OP)
Just 30 years ago , workstations would cost millions of dollars , have less than 100 kb of RAM, and take several engineers working full time to operate and program.
My question is how on earth did large companies justify the cost of buying such expensive machines for such little return on investment. You would be limited to the most basic of analysis which you could do faster and cheaper by hand. And what basic part would be worth the multi-million dollar price tag to design it?
It seems many companys underuse FEA despite computers being so relatively cheap.
My question is how on earth did large companies justify the cost of buying such expensive machines for such little return on investment. You would be limited to the most basic of analysis which you could do faster and cheaper by hand. And what basic part would be worth the multi-million dollar price tag to design it?
It seems many companys underuse FEA despite computers being so relatively cheap.





RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
I think you are a bit out with your dates/costs/capabilities. I ran my first FEA in 1999.
FWIW I have built many useful FEA models with fewer than 1000 nodes. They also correlated well with the real world.
The reason car companies got involved at that time was that they could see the potential.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
Funny, I was thinking just the opposite today. We have a relatively simple stress analysis to be performed on a seismic bracket (simplified to static loads), I previously helped an intern do similar with classical/hand calcs.
This time my manager and the senior guy whose design it is immediately jumped to FEA. One of our new interns has an interest in FEA so she's been given it to do. Trouble is I'm not sure there's anyone here to really supervise her properly, in my immediate group I'm probably the most qualified which is just plain scary.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
Even a small component may not cost much to manufacture but if in mass production or as part of a larger component, then the costs can be high if failure occurs. Generally I've found that hand calculations make such broad assumptions, take ages to do, and are full of mistakes, that they're very rarely worth doing. I'd prefer to use FEA and take the human factor out of it as much as possible.
corus
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
ParabolicTet, the company I work in began using such machines you mention in the late '70s. I've been told it was effectively painful (people travelling from Italy to Switzerland with bags of perforated cards...), but the fact is that your assertion of these machines being used for tasks which could be performed by hand is simply out of reality. There are LOTS of things that a hand-calc can only roughly approximate or even not approximate at all. In these cases, the decision was: either use a "supercomputer", or exit your business area. BTW, just an example from "my world": today, a single hydraulic turbine can cost milions of Euros. In the past, total cost was even higher, so the ROI of even a "super-machine" could be a few years.
Regards
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
cheers,
fecad.
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
I started FEA proper in 1977. The company I worked for used a program called PAFEC, sold by a spin-off company from the University of Nottingham, UK. The program cost a few hundred or so pounds sterling (GBP). That was a one-off cost, and you had the source code. We reported bugs back to them, and even sorted them out! We added our own code.
We ran FEA on a Honeywell mainframe that cost several hundred thousand pounds (about 400,000 GBP, I think) and cost a fortune to run and maintain, needing overnight operators for example. We struggled to do single 2D, non-linear analyses overnight. The only output was a line printer isting of results.
I recall we tried to get a VAX 11/780 costing about 80,000 (1979!) pounds (160,000 USD). No way!
Today the commercial program costs about 13,000 GBP per seat and runs on a 400 GBP computer, perhaps 10000 times faster with 10000 times the storage capacity of that 1970s machine.
Software and hardware costs have changed in a very big way!
Funny though, we had more thinking time, and I think in some ways the overall productivity was better then because you had to understand what the 'black box' did in those days.
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
Your anecdote stirred a few old memories.
I too cut my FE teeth on PAFEC, but running it on a computer bureau in London in 1975. That way a failed run cost you real money, as well as a heap of time, so you learned the discipline of painstaking checking before launching the analysis. Perhaps this partly explains your (totally correct) feeling that "we had more thinking time" back then.
Such discipline is lost to me now, and I almost always adopt a "suck it and see" approach rather than a fully considered one. A pity really. But I would rather not return to the days of carrying a large box of punched cards along a rainy street, using the umbrella to keep the cards dry while I got soaked.
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
http://www.etm-project.com/Roshaz_Art_1a.htm
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
yeah, we're all getting lazy these days !
waiting for the 1st post "luxury! ..."
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
Wasn't "George" the name of the operating system used by ICL computers (such as the ICL1900 series) ?
But at least the ICL1900 allowed you to use a card deck, similarly my first experience with FEA was also to type the whole thing in at a teletype, then some hours later it would print out the results, from which you would manually create plots and graphs !
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
Star for you, excellent link, thankyou. I plan on sending it to my boss, not sure how that will work out for me though
The first section very much reflects my understanding of the current state of play of FEA.
I'm not an FEA user as such, I've played around with the one embedded in our CAD software but given my complete lack of training or experience am always highly dubious of what I get out. I'm very aware of the garbage in garbage out idea.
As mentioned before I'm involved in supervising interns that get asked to do FEA, previously only with the inbuilt tool in our CAD (FEMAP Express) but now one is going to use ANSYS. Most of what they are analyzing is very simple and I try and get them to do classical calculations first, including the FBD.
Does that articly reflect what the majority of experienced posters here believe?
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
Sure. My prediction (which I made a couple of years back) is that these integrated FEA tools will be withdrawn immediately after the first lawsuit resulting from a fatal accident where pushbutton FEA was a cause. the sad thing is that the draughtie will get it in the neck, it really is not his fault.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
The fact is there are designers that turn out rubish with CAD, it's just often less critical and/or easier to spot, if nothing else it often gets spotted on assembly of first article and while it may cost money/schedule rarely if ever hurts anyone.
Doing the same on something safety critical like stress calcs, which may not be spotted before reaching the customer, is scary.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
Since many of the analysts had been doing work by hand for years with handbooks this was a giant step forward. For the most part until Algor came up with a PC based system in the early 80's only the biggest companies or the ones that had the most riding on a design were using FEM.
By the way in the States an auditorium roof collapse in the 70's was partly attributed to an insufficiently conservative design that was confirmed by computer FEM calculation. The design failed to consider buckling.
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Computers back in the day, what value?
in addition to the implicit topic of "FE-misuse" or "just-press-a-button" philosophy, please give a look at a very impressive post in the ANSYS forum...
I'm convinced that in old times, when the use of a FE system was extremely complex in itself, people dedicated to perform calculations were obliged to have a deep knowledge on what they were trying to analyze, because a single run of calculation would require enormous efforts and thus could not be "wasted" just to "give it a try and see what comes out"... That's the difference with nowadays: the significance of a FE run was enormous back in the days, but it can still be now.
Regards