Each finite element software has advantages and limitations over the others. There is no doubt, this will be an infinite discussion without limiting it with some criteria. My focus is on solid mechanics, fracture mechanics (which usually involves XFEM) and elastic waves (which involves use of an unbounded elastic solid media). I believe (please correct me if I am wrong) that available XFEM are available in static and transient analysis in ANSYS and ABAQUS.
What do you think?
I found this related question
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_current_status_of_Abaqus_XFEM
Dear Shadi Abdel-Gawad
Advantages
Based on my experience, FEM’s capability of handling complex geometry (compared to Finite difference methods) is one is its major selling point. Another important feature is that FEMs has great flexibilities (which is usually referred as adaptivity) in the sense that you can do different things from element to element based on your needs. For example, I could easily require FEM to provide higher fidelity or higher accuracy in a local region and keep elsewhere the same.
There are many other advantages, for example, for some FEMs, parallelization is quite trivial in the sense that computations can be done element by element. From practical point of view, they are more favourable when considering modern computer architecture.
Disadvantages:
FEMs are generally great on problems with built-in variational principles. For some fully non-linear and non-divergence form problems, FEMs are still improving. On the other hand, FEMs heavily relied on numerical integration, where quadrature rules some times cause headaches.
From programming point of view, FEMs are usually harder to program. The handling of mesh and the numerical integrations usually require extra work.
Dear Dr. Shadi Abdel-Gawad,
Between the two software mentioned, Abaqus is better than Ansys for fracture mechanics (for brittle materials). The real problem is ductile materials because it depends on the nucleation, emission, and propagation of voids, which are governed by non-continuum theories.
I hope that helps you.
Wilmer
Dear Shadi Abdel-Gawad
Advantages
Based on my experience, FEM’s capability of handling complex geometry (compared to Finite difference methods) is one is its major selling point. Another important feature is that FEMs has great flexibilities (which is usually referred as adaptivity) in the sense that you can do different things from element to element based on your needs. For example, I could easily require FEM to provide higher fidelity or higher accuracy in a local region and keep elsewhere the same.
There are many other advantages, for example, for some FEMs, parallelization is quite trivial in the sense that computations can be done element by element. From practical point of view, they are more favourable when considering modern computer architecture.
Disadvantages:
FEMs are generally great on problems with built-in variational principles. For some fully non-linear and non-divergence form problems, FEMs are still improving. On the other hand, FEMs heavily relied on numerical integration, where quadrature rules some times cause headaches.
From programming point of view, FEMs are usually harder to program. The handling of mesh and the numerical integrations usually require extra work.
Dear Dr. Anastas Ivanov Ivanov ,
I have used I-Deas around 18 years ago. I did not enjoy using it at all. The software does not exist now.
Dear Wilmer Velilla-Díaz
On what basis you are saying Abaqus is better than ANSYS. (Although my point was not to compare only these two software).
My real point was to know the advantages and limitation of available finite element software which can handle the problem of elastic waves propagating (including harmonic analysis) in a fractured unbounded media with singularity (including weak-inhomogeneity or strong singularity-cracks). I believe there is no software that can handle all of that so if not which software can do what
- Badges
- Science topic