Category Archives: Finite Element Analysis

Using the Strand7 API

Posted on 23/09/2011 by dougaj4

Strand7 is a general purpose Finite Element Analysis program, which has an Application Programming Interface (API), allowing external programs to interact with Strand7, including reading and writing to data files, running analyses, and reading the results.  The API is a comprehensive … Continue reading →

Posted in Excel, Finite Element Analysis, Frame Analysis, Newton, UDFs, VBA | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Buckling of Tubes

Posted on 05/07/2011 by dougaj4

The video here The Surfing Scientist shows a rough and ready experiment demonstrating the superior strength under axial load of cylindrical tubes, compared with square tubes (skip to 1:30 if you are not interested in the chat). The conclusion about … Continue reading →

Posted in Finite Element Analysis, Newton | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Dynamically Defined Dancing Pendulums

Posted on 30/05/2011 by dougaj4

Following the previous post, I have re-created the animation using a non-linear dynamic analysis inside Strand7, rather than by feeding in the positions of each ball at each time step.  The input using this approach is much simpler; just set … Continue reading →

Posted in Finite Element Analysis, Newton | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Dancing Pendulums

Posted on 25/05/2011 by dougaj4

This animation was produced in response to a video of real pendulums performing similar tricks: Not having an animation program I thought I’d use the finite element program Strand7.  Modelling the pendulums was easy, just 15 beam elements with a … Continue reading →

Posted in Animation, Excel, Finite Element Analysis, Newton | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Working with FEM data and using the dictionary object

Posted on 26/09/2010 by dougaj4

This post features an Excel User Defined Function (UDF) to count the number of different element types (beams, plates, bricks and links) and the number of node restraints at each end of listed beams from a finite element model.  The … Continue reading →

Posted in Arrays, Excel, Finite Element Analysis, Newton, UDFs, VBA | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments