There are a great number of Structural Analysis Software that can perform the accurate FEA calculations without the difficulty of having to manually set up the complex process. In saying this - FEA is an extremely powerful and accurate method of structural analysis and is the backbone of most Structural Analysis Software. It is common that an FEA model will comprise of matrices thousands of entries - making it pretty much impossible to be evaluated by human calculations. This can be an extremely difficult and time consuming process to set up and run. FEA requires that the structure is broken up into smaller parts (or elements) which can be evaluated individually for a more accurate estimate of the solution.

It is a far more complicated, yet accurate method to run structural analysis compared to hand calculations.

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a complex numerical method used to solve complicated problems which contain a number of variable inputs such as boundary conditions, applied loads and support types.

Static structural analysis examples