FEM education in undergraduate studies: Industry‐informed research

Abstract

AbstractRecent mechanical engineering graduates are expected to utilize Finite Element Analysis (FEA) in structural and machine design activities. However, after decades of implementation in engineering schools, the Finite Element Method (FEM) still challenges instructors and course designers. To align learning outcomes with industrial requirements, this article analyzes the opinions of Mexican industrial and academic experts about four important aspects of FEM education. The results suggest that specialists agree on the importance of including a mixture of theoretical and applied topics in the syllabus but prefer practical skills over fundamental concepts. Besides learning from defeaturing to postprocessing a model, engineering students must know how to plan, verify, and validate their finite element studies. Experts expect early design engineers to be proficient with Computer‐Aided Design (CAD) and have relevant mathematical and programming skills. Instead of using specialized software, students' first exposure to FEM may be based on FEA tools embedded in CAD systems. Also, academic and industrial respondents request the incorporation of modal, thermal and nonlinear analysis procedures in the course timetable. Finally, the statistical analysis shows that the two types of respondents share one common vision about the importance of the aspects under study. The findings from this work are useful for the design of FEM‐related coursework and can be used to guide course instructors about the right balance of theory and practice, overall course contents, and the selection of the software utilized for the practical part of the program.