Workshop: How to Demonstrate Design Code Compliance using FEA

Nawal Prinja, Technology Director (Nuclear) from WOOD Plc.

This lecture is aimed at practising engineers who are keen to utilise Finite Element Analysis (FEA) in the design process.

There are two basic approaches to the design of engineering components and structures: design by rule and design by analysis. In the design by rule approach, rules and limitations set by a design standard are adhered to. The design by analysis approach requires either analytical or computational effort to predict stress levels and this is where the FEA is often used. The workshop will highlight the main issues in using FEA in conjunction with design codes and covers various aspects of FEA practice and assessment of a design. Since most of the design codes were written before the advent of FEA, it is important to appreciate the importance of various classes and categories of stresses used in the design codes.

The talk will highlight the biggest change in history of structural design codes and explain how uncertainty is being accounted for through the use of probabilistically calibrated partial safety factors instead of the traditional ‘factor of safety’. This change has been introduced through the new Eurocodes which have replaced the old BS codes. The basic principles used in the two types of design codes (allowable stress codes and limit state codes) along with code treatments for design against failure will be discussed.