Importance of Boundary Conditions in FEA:

Today in industry it is found that Boundary Conditions (BC) are probably where most of
the engineers are doing mistake.
There is a great impact of Boundary conditions on the result of analysis and a simple
mistake in BCs makes the difference between a model with 50% of error and 5% of error
and may me more.

It is really shocking fact that even some of the most educated engineers were not able to
define correctly boundary conditions. They merely constrain a model and hope that they
will get correct results and when the results are not correct, they either curse the
software or the CAD model.
The few who know the importance of boundary conditions, merely test a few
combinations and fail to understand the overall strategy to constrain correctly an FEA
model.
A model correctly constrained can lead to highly accurate results, but you cant do it if
you dont understand the role of boundary conditions in the simulation:

To fix the value of a displacement or a load on a specific area of the model

To impart or not stiffness to the model
To replace parts of the assembly
To stabilize the solver in nonlinear analysis
To suppress or create singularities near your models boundary

The truth is that there are many things to understand about boundary conditions, but once
you know them and you understand the strategy, it becomes very easy and you wont
ever be annoyed again to set up your boundary conditions.
Thanks.

- The Culminates Engineering Services

(Reference:feaforallbycyprien)