Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) are two computational techniques used in engineering and scientific fields. FEA is used to solve problems related to stress, strain, and deformation in structures, while CFD is used to study fluid flow and its related phenomena. Although both techniques are widely used in the same fields, there are significant differences between FEA and CFD. In this blog, we will discuss the key differences between FEA and CFD.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA)
FEA is a numerical method used to solve problems related to stress, strain, and deformation in structures. The technique uses a mathematical model of a structure, which is divided into a large number of small elements. Each element is analyzed for its stress and strain, and then the results are combined to obtain an overall solution for the structure. FEA is widely used in mechanical, civil, and aerospace engineering, as well as in materials science.
FEA can be used to analyze static and dynamic problems. In static analysis, the structure is analyzed under a steady load, while in dynamic analysis, the structure is analyzed under time-varying loads. FEA can also be used to analyze problems related to heat transfer and fluid flow, but it is not as effective as CFD in solving these types of problems.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
CFD is a numerical method used to solve problems related to fluid flow and heat transfer. The technique uses a mathematical model of a fluid domain, which is divided into a large number of small cells. Each cell is analyzed for its velocity, pressure, and temperature, and then the results are combined to obtain an overall solution for the fluid flow.
CFD is widely used in engineering fields such as aerospace, automotive, chemical, and mechanical engineering, as well as in environmental science. CFD can be used to analyze problems related to laminar and turbulent flow, heat transfer, and combustion.
When to Use Finite Element Analysis (FEA)?
FEA can be used to analyze a wide range of physical phenomena, including stress, deformation, heat transfer, and fluid flow, among others. Here are some situations where FEA may be useful:
Complex Geometries: FEA can be used to analyze complex geometries that are difficult to analyze using traditional analytical methods. For example, complex shapes and curved surfaces can be easily analyzed using FEA.
Nonlinear Behavior: FEA can be used to analyze systems with nonlinear behavior, such as materials that exhibit plastic deformation or components that undergo large displacements. FEA can also be used to analyze systems that undergo dynamic loading, such as structures that experience impact or vibration.
Optimization: FEA can be used to optimize designs by simulating the behavior of a system under different conditions. This can help engineers to identify areas of high stress, strain, or displacement and make design changes to improve the performance of the system.
Material Properties: FEA can be used to analyze the behavior of materials under different conditions, such as high temperatures or high pressure. This can help engineers to select the right materials for a particular application.
When to Use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)?
CFD is a powerful tool that is used in a variety of industries to simulate and predict fluid behavior. Here are some scenarios where CFD can be used:
Design and optimization of complex systems: CFD can be used to simulate and optimize complex fluid systems, such as air conditioning systems, heat exchangers, and chemical reactors.
Aerospace applications: CFD is extensively used in aerospace engineering to study the behavior of fluids around aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft. CFD simulations can predict lift and drag forces, as well as the stability and maneuverability of the vehicle.
Environmental modeling: CFD can be used to simulate and predict the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere or water bodies. This helps in assessing the impact of environmental pollutants on human health and ecosystems.
Industrial processes: CFD is widely used in the chemical and process industries to optimize the performance of industrial processes. For example, CFD can be used to model fluid flow in distillation columns, reactors, and crystallizers.
The Key Differences between FEA and CFD
FEA (Finite Element Analysis) and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) are both important tools used in engineering analysis, but they differ in their applications and methodologies.
Applications:
FEA is primarily used to analyze solid structures, such as bridges, buildings, and machine components, and to predict how they will behave under various loads and conditions. On the other hand, CFD is used to simulate and analyze the flow of fluids (such as air, water, and oil) and gases through or around objects, such as aircraft, cars, and pumps.
Methodologies:
FEA involves breaking down a complex structure into smaller, finite elements, which are then analyzed individually. These elements are connected to each other at specific points, called nodes, which allow for the transfer of forces and stresses between elements. The equations used to analyze each element are based on the laws of physics and can be solved using mathematical techniques such as the finite element method. CFD, on the other hand, involves solving equations that describe the fluid flow around an object, such as the Navier-Stokes equations.
Inputs
FEA requires inputs such as material properties, loads, and boundary conditions to accurately simulate the behavior of a structure. Material properties can include density, stiffness, and strength, while loads and boundary conditions can include forces, pressures, and temperature. CFD, on the other hand, requires inputs such as the geometry of the object being analyzed, the fluid properties, and the boundary conditions. Fluid properties can include viscosity, density, and thermal conductivity, while boundary conditions can include inflow and outflow rates, and the type of flow being simulated (laminar or turbulent).
Output:
FEA produces output such as stresses, strains, and displacements, which can be used to optimize the design of a structure and ensure that it meets safety standards. CFD produces output such as velocity, pressure, and temperature fields, which can be used to optimize the design of fluid systems and to identify areas of high or low flow.
FEA and CFD are two different tools used in engineering analysis, each with their own applications, methodologies, inputs, and outputs. FEA is used to analyze solid structures, while CFD is used to simulate fluid flow. Both tools are important in optimizing the design of engineering systems, and choosing the appropriate tool depends on the specific application and the type of analysis required.
Employing manufacturing process automation involves having machines complete specific tasks. This helps you stay competitive in your sector while increasing productivity, efficiency, and cost savings. There is minimal or no human involvement in the automated manufacturing process.
Automation in manufacturing is employed in areas-
Machine work like processing, inspection, and assembling
Compliance
Customer service
Distribution
Finances
Logistics
Procurement
Research
Sales and ordering
Manufacturing Process Automation companies are augmented by the Internet of Things (IoT). It has now become a global technology that has transformed entire industrial processes. IoT, in conjunction with computer automation controls, helps to simplify industrial processes and increase data automation. Automation aims to eliminate mistakes and inefficiencies, largely from people.
Benefits of Automation in Manufacturing
Quality Control of Product
Manufacturing Process Automation decreases the proportion of defect rate and is more compliant and uniform. This allows the top-quality products to reach consumers. It also reduces or eliminates the chances of human error.
By involving IoT systems in the production line, the environmental conditions, equipment performance, location of inefficiencies, and consistent process, are all kept in check. These continuous data insights enable manufacturers to pinpoint the source of quality control concerns and confidently take action.
Structured Inventory Management
Automation is rapidly transforming every aspect of inventory management. When manufacturing procedures are integrated with IoT, it enhances the supply chain and performance management.
IoT uses different technologies like GPS and Radio Frequency ID (RFID) that aid in data collection. This supplements product tracking, improves logistics, identifies potential risk, and thus, makes inventory management efficient.
Effective Maintenance Schedule
Automated equipment maintenance enhances asset utilization, extends machine life, and optimizes field crew efficiency. Manufacturing companies use automation, data science, and IoT to determine equipment conditions and accurately predict when a failure might occur.
This technology employs an in-memory database and real-time analysis to highlight areas of the machine that need repairing. This in turn reduces maintenance costs, enhances safety and compliance, and also refines the production line.
Workplace safety
IoT- based automation in the workplace has enhanced the safety of people. It addresses the large number of threats that can be prevented. This enables continuous monitoring of environmental conditions, the physical health of employees, can help limit employees’ risks, and exposure to prevent accidents from happening. It also speeds up the progress of rescue operations and prevents fire accidents.
Asset tracking
Automated asset management ensures reliability, extended equipment life, proper asset usage, and best returns on assets. Automated asset tracking involves IoT devices that enable remote monitoring and management of assets’ positions and movements.
It allows optimization of asset usage and performance with real-time data collection and helps generate valuable business intelligence. It supports the entire workflow by producing reports that notify when an asset needs to be served.
Cost reduction
Automation in manufacturing decreases the overall maintenance cost by using predictive maintenance fundamentals, ensuring worker safety during training and maintenance. It bridges the gap between floor staff and executives; detecting and resolving production bottlenecks.
It also provides insight into future changes and possibilities before the money is put into action. IoT lowers costs by prioritizing and minimizing the impacts of productivity bottlenecks through process optimization.
Bottom Line
The benefits of manufacturing process automation are limitless. As technology is becoming more accessible, automation is becoming more crucial. It leads to an increase in versatility, improves quality, helps gain competitive advantage, and focuses on work expertise. It can even enhance precision, consistency, and uptime. Now is the chance to leverage automated technologies to acquire a plethora of benefits, predictable schedules, and comprehensive budgets.
Robotics has always been the most debated topics of all in the technology domain. Some say robots in our day to day lives will be a disaster. While some say it will simplify our lives far more than we think. Anyhow, we see a lot of Robotics application quite widely both in industrial as well as domestic arenas. Now people are ready to accept more of robotic applications to simplify their lives. Robot Design process is not as simple as machine designing. It involves some serious processes to ensure the machine delivers the best to simplify our lives. Most importantly, it has to ensure the error rate is zero. Here is the process that builds a robust Robot.
Define the Problem
You’re building a Robotic machine, but for what purpose? Are you trying to create Robots to welcome guests at your office reception? Or are these Robots going to help you in arrange goods in your manufacturing facility? Whatsoever it is, first define the purpose for which you are building the product and begin identifying the specific requirements. This process will let you go ahead with ease as you have a clear vision.
Research & Design
Now that you defined the purpose of your Robot and also you identified the requirements to do that. Yes, you identified a problem and said why building a robot for the particular issue is essential. Now you must spearhead the research process.
Under this, your target audience, functionalities of your Robot, Well Suited materials to build the Robot, scale of production and most importantly what operations it will be performing will have to be addressed.
Post research, you have to start focusing on your Robot Design. Under this, you have to identify the possible solutions as well as the alternates. Even you should consider the specific design details, which will be accepted allover.
Prototype
A trial run before launching any big thing outside will actually let you understand the outcome. If it is negative, you can actually make the essential changes. You can even rework completely on the whole model. This step is more necessary for Robot Design because it is meant to replace a human. Anything disastrous will cost the existence of Robots and the valuable amount of hard work by several professionals.
Build
You successfully made a prototype and analyzed the outcome. If successful, you’re now responsible to build a robust Robot and launch it in the market. You need to follow some examples like The Art of LEGO Design which is widely used in the industry for inspiration. But several professionals do it in the prototype itself. Hence try to do it in Prototype stage itself.
Program, Test & Evaluate
After finishing the robot design or robot manufacturing, you need to test if all the functions are perfect. So you have to check if all of the Robots that you manufactured are working and if all the functions you intended are working. By ensuring this step, you tend to give away a finished product to your end-users.
Technosoft Engineering with an experience of two decades in the field of Robot Design services offers impeccable solutions to simplify complex processes. Refer to this page to understand how the offerings of Technosoft are unique and how it keeps your ante up in the market.
Jams and pickles some decades before were homemade. Well, even now they are but not as prevalent as they used to be. Today we get instant food. While Jams and Pickles are basic processed food, nowadays we even get Pasta, Noodles and almost everything packaged. All we have to do is to add some hot water and eat. This is often called as Ready-to-Eat Food. These are processed in a facility and sent worldwide to people of different cultures. Aerated drinks, packaged chips and what not almost everything we see today is processed food.
Engineers who make these huge food processing machines have a lot of creative process going on in their mind. These creative thoughts are triggered by couple of basic principles and understanding of the overall concept. Moreover, they make food processing machinery design with the concept of cooking for the masses. Wish to know how? Then join us in the ride of understanding machinery design.
Understanding Quantity
Now let us connect this with cooking at our home. We all have vessels of different kinds and different sizes. If you’re living alone, you tend to have smaller vessels. If you live with 3 or 4 as a family, you need medium sized vessels and it goes on. In food processing industry, you’re preparing food for masses. It is going to be sent worldwide in packets for sale. Hence every single piece of chips etc. should be perfect and balanced with the right flavours. Vessels play an important role in this matter. You cannot manage to cook for that many with smaller vessels. In manufacturing facility, it is going to be a series of events happening simultaneously. Even if you stop once, you fail to manufacture enough for the rising demand of your product. Hence understanding quantity is the first thing in the mind of design engineers in food processing machinery design.
Using the Right Materials
Again, we use some couple of vessels at home. Some are thick and some are thin. Some are flat and some are hollow. For example, you need thicker pans to make pan cakes as the thinner ones burn them soon. Likewise, if you’re preparing deep fried food items, you need a thin vessel and an option to slow cook or in medium flame. By doing so, you cook fries evenly. Temperature changes from vessel to vessel and even alloy to alloy. If you’re using hard iron base, deep frying might happen with ease. The same you can do with stainless steel, but it might heat up soon.
Cleanliness & Hygiene
When you do something for the masses, you need to keep cleanliness in mind. The vessels are used once and the debris stays. Will you run the machines with the same leftovers? If you say yes, try to say no. This might sound normal in home cooking environment as we don’t use any preservatives. But when it comes to a facility of mass cooking, preservatives are involved and there are chances of insect infestations. But again, it is not that every time you have to clean, once a day will definitely be recommended. Hence a design engineer will always make an option to easy clean the vessel before running it for the next use or the next day. Hence cleanliness & hygiene is an integral part of food processing machinery design.
Technosoft Engineering with an experience of two decades in the field of engineering design offers impeccable solutions to simplify complex processes. Refer to this page to understand how the offerings of Technosoft are unique and how it keeps your ante up in the market.
To create a better tomorrow it is essential to work in close association with industry visionaries, clients, policy makers, public as well as financial institutions. It is about utilizing our partnerships, past experiences, key assets and employees, in the optimal way. However, to do this, awareness about ecosystem, market, environment and trends that will shape our future is must.
The key trends which are influencing the future with respect to design, engineering, infrastructure and manufacturing fall under below mentioned categories:
1. Shorter Product Lifecycles
Due to rapid pace of innovation, change, volatility and preferences, we need to design world-class products utilizing newest technologies. With the expectation of quicker ROI and scarce capital, the focus will be more on ideation, concept, and designing and development phases – before the launch of the projects.
The demand on predictability and viability will also be higher than ever before. The different players in the lifecycle will either integrate or collaborate to stay significant, will need to reinvent themselves or will get consolidated.
2. Flexible Engagement Models
These days businesses are becoming increasing complex due to inter-dependency and connects between the value chains. We see our client stakeholders and policy makers discuss wider aspects at each stage of engineering project execution, financing, planning, constraints and options.
Flexible engagement model is the best engagement model looking at the current customer demands and considering their ever-changing requirements. Flexible engagement models help to strike the right balance between cost and operational efficiency. These models are geared to provide high level of transparency and control to customers. It also provides the clients flexibility to switch from one business model to another.
3. Evolution of Automation, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Industry
We are experiencing the fourth Industrial revolution now and it’s powered by advancements that include robotics, smart manufacturing using automation, and artificial intelligence (AI). By adopting AI, the organizations can keep the inventories lean and reduce manufacturing cost resulting in growth in manufacturing sector. Having said that, the manufacturing industries also have to gear up for the plants where design team, supply chain, production line, and quality control are integrated into an intelligent engine which provides actionable insights.
Automation will enable the manufacturing sector reach a level of productivity and accuracy which is beyond human capabilities. Robots are already being used in the manufacturing industry and can even work in environments which are otherwise complicated, dangerous and tedious for humans. The robotics in future can be used to re-create the complex human tasks by using advanced voice and image recognition capabilities. The shift to smart manufacturing results in increased output, corrective action and defect detection making the entire production cycle way more efficient.
4. Importance of Knowledge and Technology
Our workplaces are expected to change and are trending towards global rebalancing amidst the digital technologies and internet facilitating the collaboration of various teams. There has been a shift in employee demographics in every organization across the globe. The diversity is reshaping the environment and the work culture. The age old system of organization structure and hierarchies are being redefined.
The key assets of any business are not just the tangible components like assets & employees but also the knowledge and how organizations manage their intangible assets. The intangible assets include especially the technical knowhow and experience of a company in executing and delivering exciting work. Training and propensity to learn will stay in focus and utilization of tools to learn, train, change, manage knowledge and mentor will be an essential component of any growth or sustenance strategy.
Why Technosoft Engineering
Technosoft Engineering leverages over 20 years of cumulative knowledge and experience to help the world’s foremost manufacturers to create top-notch products and to select, deploy and adopt the technologies which underpin the entire product realization lifecycle.
We provide flexible engagement models to enable significant cost savings to our clients that are personalized to their business requirements. We drive innovation and efficiencies drawing on a combination of people, technology and process to meet the design, production and engineering challenges faced by our clients.
We offer solutions to cover end-to-end product value chain from idea to conceptualization through designing and product development. We optimize the product launching time and make sure the project is delivered on-time.
