I'm starting out using FEA to do some simulations in a university research setting. I am using hyper mesh 11 as a mesher and abaqus as a solver. I'm having trouble finding good hyper mesh resources.

Also does anyone have any good resources for learning about FEA in general? I'm having trouble as some of the setup doesn't seem particularly straight forward.

Thanks,
Jacob

Maybe you need to read R.D Cook's book on FEA, but on the practical side of things, I would recommend you BJ Mcdonald's Practical Stress Analysis with Finite Elements. NAFEMS's courses are also available for you to attend and I am sure they would get you upto scratch on practical FEA tips and pitfalls!

Practical modeling and FEA theory are two different things as pointed out by AeroStructAnalyst and elsewhere on the forum. My bet is that you are more interested in modeling and, if so, as suggested above, check out NAFEMS courses. For FEA theory, Bathe's book and video courses on linear and non-linear finite element analysis should be more than sufficient. But, of course, watching and reading does not always translate into learning; problem solving (at least the simple stuff like cantilever, 3pt bending, 4 pt. bending, etc.) and hand calculations will be of a huge help.

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