7 Ways to Evaluate FEA Accuracy

Hanson Chang
MSC.Software Corporation

2005 Aero COE, Wichita, KS

Agenda
• Mesh Size and FEA Accuracy
• 7 Ways to Evaluate FEA
Accuracy
• Takeaways
– Laminated reference chart

2 2005 Aero COE, Wichita, KS

 Design Analyst Rules!
• Industry trend:
– Design engineers today are routinely performing
preliminary first-pass finite element analysis (FEA)
on new products or configurations.
– This trend to perform “upfront” analysis has really
taken off in the last couple of years.
– A new community of part-time FEA users have
brought significant time savings and improved
product designs to their companies.

3 2005 Aero COE, Wichita, KS

 Meshing, Meshing, Meshing…
• This presentation addresses a tough decision
faced by many part-time and full-time FEA users:
– Should I refine the mesh to get more accurate results
or do I stop now?

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 Finding the Right Balance

• Achieving the optimal FEA mesh

– A mesh that is too coarse can lead to inaccurate
results and poor product design.
– A mesh that is too fine can waste valuable
computer resources and lengthen the analysis
cycle.
– To find the right balance, one needs to understand
how mesh size is related to FEA accuracy.

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 Mesh Size and Accuracy
• How is FEA accuracy affected by mesh size?
– FEA accuracy is affected by many factors*
• Discretization Error
• Modeling Error
• User Error
• Software Bugs
• Numerical Error
– We will focus on Discretization Error which is directly
related to mesh size

* Robert D. Cook, “Concepts and Applications of Finite Element Analysis”, 4th Ed

6 2005 Aero COE, Wichita, KS

 Defining Discretization Error

• Discretization error is the difference between the

actual structural behavior and FEA results due
to mesh size
– Stresses are computed at Gauss points first, then
extrapolated to element corners.
– In a typical model, corner stresses from neighboring
elements do not agree at a common node.
– This disagreement is called discretization error.

7 2005 Aero COE, Wichita, KS

 Actual Structural Behavior
Stress distribution is smooth

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 FEA Approximation

Error
Error

Constant Strain Tetrahedron Linear Strain Tetrahedron

Trilinear Hexahedron
Constant Strain Triangle

Bilinear Quadrilateral

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Discretization Error and Mesh Size
• Discretization error is due to the “finite” element size. The
smaller the elements, the smaller the discretization error.

Coarse Mesh
Fine Mesh
Larger discretization error
Smaller discretization error

10 2005 Aero COE, Wichita, KS

 7 Ways to Evaluate FEA Accuracy
• Using the discretization error as a guide, we can
evaluate how accurate an analysis is.
• 7 ways to evaluate FEA accuracy
– Average stress
– Broken color bands
– Convergence
– Discontinuity
– Energy norm
– Formula
– Gradient

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 Averaged vs. Un-averaged Stress
• Compare the Average iso stress image with the Discontinuous iso
stress image. Maximum stresses from these two plots should be
close to each other for an adequate mesh.
– The Average iso image takes an average of all the element corner stresses sharing
a node, averages them, and assigns this average value to that node. CATIA then
uses these nodal values to plot the color image.
– The Discontinuous iso image plots the stresses as is, without any averaging.

Too much difference

Discontinuous iso Average iso

12 2005 Aero COE, Wichita, KS

 Broken Color Bands
• Broken stress color bands is an indication of discretization error. This
error causes the color bands to be discontinuous going from one
element to another.
• In order to visualize this correctly, do the following
– Turn on edge display
– Turn off color map smoothing
– Set visualization of stress image to Discontinuous iso

Incorrect settings Correct settings

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 Convergence Plot
• By monitoring certain FEA results as the mesh is refined, you can
track the accuracy of the analysis by a convergence plot.
• Typical result entities plotted are maximum displacement and
maximum stress. You are looking for the change in results to
approach zero from iteration to iteration.
• To set up a convergence plot, you need to
– Create global sensors first
– Plot the sensor readings as you refine the mesh Look for the curve to approach
a horizontal line

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 Discontinuity in Stress

• The stress distribution shown on the

right shows that interelement stress
“jumps” can occur if the mesh is too
coarse.
• These stress jumps are an
indication of errors in the stress
results.

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 Discontinuity in Stress (cont.)
• There are several ways to compute the stress jumps:
– One way is to subtract the lowest stress from the highest stress at a node and
call this the stress discontinuity error.
– Another way is to compute an average stress at a node. Then find the difference
between the neighboring element stresses and this average stress and take the
largest difference as the stress discontinuity error.
– The third way is similar to the second method except the numbers are massaged
by additional root mean square procedures to account for the statistical nature of
this error measurement.

• The third method described above is used by MSC SimDesigner to

measure stress discontinuity errors.

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 Energy Norm
• The stress distribution shown on the
right shows that interelement stress
“jumps” can occur if the mesh is too
coarse.
• These stress jumps can be integrated
inside each element as an Energy
Norm - i.e. work done by the stress
jumps
• Summing up all the energy norms
over the entire finite element model
gives us the total energy norm due to
stress error.

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 Energy Norm (cont.)
• By dividing the energy norm by the total strain energy in the system,
we get a sense of how much error there is in the model. This is called
the “Global Estimated Error Rate” in CATIA.
2
• This method of tracking error is know as the Z method named after its
authors Mr. Zienkiewicz and Mr. Zhu.
• The Global Estimated Error Rate should be kept low for a final
detailed stress analysis.
• The Global Estimated Error rate is computed by
– First create a precision image
– Next click the information icon and click on estimate local error in the
spec. tree

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 Formulas for Mesh Density
• Rule of thumb for mesh density exist in every company
• Examples:
– X number of elements through the part thickness
– Y number of elements around a hole
– Z number of elements around a cylinder
• How to develop a list of rule of thumb for yourself
– Use company FEA manual, if available
– Consult an analysis specialist
– Talk to fellow design analysts
– Run simple test cases
• Remember, these are rules of thumb which tend to be subjective and
typically only apply to specific types of loading and boundary
conditions.

19 2005 Aero COE, Wichita, KS

 Gradient Across an Element
• The number of color bands across an element is a measure of how
fast the stress changes (stress gradient) within an element.
• Too many color bands within an element is an indication that the
mesh is too coarse.

5 color bands within an element

Mesh is too coarse

5 color bands

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 Conclusions
• Congratulations! You have learned to evaluate
the accuracy of your FEA results using 7 different
methods
– Average stress
– Broken color bands
– Convergence
– Discontinuity
– Energy norm
– Formula
– Gradient

21 2005 Aero COE, Wichita, KS