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00 05 FEM Convergence Testing
00 05 FEM Convergence Testing
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The Problem
The question that always arises is: How small do I need to make the elements before I can trust the solution?
The Consequences
Finer meshes come with a cost however: more calculational time and large memory requirements (both disk and
RAM)! It is desired to find the minimum number of elements that give you a converged solution.
Beam Models
For beam models, we actually only need to define a single element per line unless we are applying a distributed
load on a given frame member. When point loads are used, specifying more that one element per line will not
change the solution, it will only slow the calculations down. For simple models it is of no concern, but for a
larger model, it is desired to minimize the number of elements, and thus calculation time and still obtain the
desired accuracy.
General Models
In general however, it is necessary to conduct convergence tests on your finite element model to confirm that a
fine enough element discretization has been used. In a solid mechanics problem, this would be done by creating
several models with different mesh sizes and comparing the resulting deflections and stresses, for example. In
general, the stresses will converge more slowly than the displacement, so it is not sufficient to examine the
displacement convergence.