Best Stress Schools?

[787a380]

Hi Folks,
Am trying to locate where in the country has the best training for Stress Engineers.

Can anyone advise?

Thanks

 

[feadude]

maybe wisconsin university . I think that is where robert cook is or used to teach. He is the co author of "concepts and applications of finite element"

 

[Drej]

Imperial is very good, as is Cranfield. Swansea university also has an excellent FE department (blowing my own trumpet here).

 

[rb1957]

personally, i would have thought there was a difference between a good FE education and a good stress education.

in anycase, perhaps 787a380 could explain which continent he/she is looking for ...

i liked UNSW ...

 

[Drej]

> personally, i would have thought there was a difference between a good FE education and a good stress education.

You think right, and I didn't imply there wasn't one either. Unless you're very fortunate, very few people get an education - in the strict sense - in FE. You can learn the basics in uni., and you may be in a position to write your own code (where you gain a real understanding of the basic principles of FE), but the real learning comes from applying the basic principles learned, as well as practical experience, and making lots and lots and lots of mistakes. With the lots of mistakes also come lots and lots of lessons. Half the battle when you're starting out is accepting that age means experience means you listen means you learn. Amen.

 

[rb1957]

i couldn't agree more ... for too many "engineers" FE is a magic bullet, but sometimes you can shoot yourself in the foot. i wish schools taught FE (the way I was taught) as learning the basics rather than learning how to run a commercially available code. but that's just the FE side.

My experience has been that engineers have to be able to do hand calcs, have to be able to understand the structure and how it handles loads (the zen of stress analysis ?). this takes alot of experience, but it needs a foundation. I don't think you'd believe the number of graduates who can't solve a simply supported beam in an interview !

Unfortunately I think schools think they have to push FE (in place of traditional, unfashionable, hand calcs) so that graduates can step right into the work. I wish I could spend 5 minutes with whoever gave them this idea !

off soap box

 

[Qshake]

To me, any univeristy that has a program dedicated to Engineering Mechanics is likely to be worth looking into. To clarify, I don't mean Mechanical Engineering or Aerospace Engineering though students from each of those programs are commonly found in Engineering Mechanics classrooms.

Engineering Mechcanics would expound on the basics of your statics, dynamics, strength of materials. typically these programs begin with applied strength of materials or advanced strength of materials and go one to include Elasticity, Stability, Continuum Mechanics, Mechanics of Anisotropic Materials, FEA, CFD, etc.

Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

 

[SteveMills]

I would agree with Qshake on selecting a school with an Engineering Mechanics dept. Several US choices are, Virginia Tech, Univ of Alabama, Univ of Texas, Cal Tech, and Illinois Inst of Tech.

The mechanics classes are way more important than the FEM classes. I've worked with a lot of engineers. The better ones were well founded in mechanics. FEM is a technique to apply what is learned in mechanics.