FEA is a widely-used computational method for numerically solving engineering and mathematical problems described by differential equations with boundary conditions. In materials engineering, FEA provides useful insights into the relationship between the mechanical, electrical or thermal properties of materials and their microstructures, which are often complex in composition or topology. FEA treats the physical quantity as a field variable subject to differential equations with boundary conditions. The geometry is broken into polyhedra-like connected finite elements, in which the field variable takes particular functional forms inside the elements. In this way, solving the differential equations can be transformed into linear algebra problems and becomes tractable in general.

In this webinar, Yang will give a brief introduction to the fundamentals of FEA and OOF2, and demonstrate OOF2 simulations of stress distribution in example materials, with and without temperature effect. The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UIUC has incorporated several computational modules into undergraduate courses that uses FEA to explore mechanical properties of materials, with the help of the OOF2 in nanoHUB. Yang will also share his experience as an instructor in these courses on how OOF2 and nanoHUB facilitates teaching and learning in UIUC.

Yang Dan is a Ph.D. candidate and research assistant in Materials Science and Engineering in University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with research interest focused on studying material defects and mechanical properties of metals and alloys using computational tools and theoretical modeling. He obtained his B.S. degree in physics from Peking University, P. R. China. Yang worked as a computational teaching assistant in 2021-2022 in Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UIUC, during which he helped designing computational projects, gave lectures in several undergraduate courses, and conducted research on computational education.

Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN)

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Yang Dan (2023), "An Introduction to Finite Element Analysis of Material Microstructure Properties in nanoHUB," https://nanohub.org/resources/38042.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. computational materials science
2. Finite Element Method/Analysis (FEM)
3. material properties
4. OOF2
5. temperature effects