I am somewhat new to using skin elements to account for moments at the junction between plates and solids, but I believe I'm doing it correctly. Yet the stress distributions I see have stark discontinuities and are nothing like what I would expect in the real world. My intuition is confirmed...
Hi All,
I lead a mechanical team at a growing aerospace company building small satellites up to 500 kg. I've been tasked with bringing structural analysis in-house to rely less on outside contractors. I intend to accomplish this through a mix of training and hiring, but I am concerned about...
Hi All,
When I load materials from the built-in FEMAP database "mat_eng_in-lbf-psi-degF-BTU.esp" for a thermal analysis, the conductivity and specific heat values don't make sense to me. I must be missing conversion units somewhere but for the life of me can't figure it out. I am using...
I run a small business on the side that sells motorized astrophotography mounts. Cutting our product's packaging foam by hand is a pain (and quality is inconsistent between techs), but ordering custom cut foam is too expensive. I'm a mechanical engineer by day and have broad (albeit mostly...
Hi all, I'm a mechanical engineer at a research institution building an array of spectrographs. I'm currently designing the coolant assembly and attempting to specify the coolant lines for a minimum of 10 yrs operation with no line maintenance. The other constraints and requirements are listed...
Does anyone know if it's possible to apply stress factors to only specific groups of elements in post?
I have an analysis of a structure that requires different stress factors to be applied to different regions of the structure. Each analysis run has 160+ load cases that all need these factors...
I was in a meeting yesterday at a new job and one of the engineers scoffed at an FEA model used for static structural analysis with 1 million nodes (the elements were solids, not that it matters that much). He praised another engineer's effort to convert the model to plane elements and reduce to...
It has been a while since taking any fluids classes (10 years since undergrad), so I'm having some trouble modeling a simple greenhouse for a home project. If anyone here has experience with Solidworks Flow and some fluids knowledge, I bow to your expertise and humbly ask for your assistance...
Hi All,
I'm having a hell of a time finding a supplier of low temp high vacuum bearings with lead times under 14 weeks. Does anyone know of a good supplier? Basic (flexible) requirements:
Temp: -100C to 50C
Vacuum: to 10^-7 Torr
Radial load: 100 lbf
Outgassing: NASA spaceflight requirements...
I'm the sole mechanical engineer on an electronic package wherein a small polyimide PCB will be mounting to an aluminum 6061 housing via #4-40 screws. Due to my lack of experience, I'm not sure how much concern to place on a worst-case .0015" interference due to the tolerance stack of the holes...
I spent 20 minutes searching on google and another 15 searching here, but I can't seem to find a book that details all reasonably conceivable fastener failure modes (particularly for aerospace applications), and how to calculate margins for them. I'm aware that companies all have their own...
Hi, I'm looking for suggestions for a good composites textbook, preferably written with spacecraft/aerospace in mind. Ideally it would cover basic theory, analysis, and manufacturing.
Any suggestions? Is there a commonly referenced book (ie, a "bible"), like Roark's for structural engineering...
I'm trying to find the yield load of a circular ring under tensile loading, given by Roark 6th Edition, Ref. number 5 in Table 17.
The Roark equation shows load forces (W) compressing the ring towards the ring center. I'm trying to find the opposite - the ring will be in tension (it is the...
Parts seem to be getting stuck in a weird visual glitch: depending on the view angle, something akin to an unpredictable cross-sectional view is applied to the part. It's hard to explain, but I think if you've experienced it you know what I'm talking about.
I've run into this same visual glitch...
