Each year new topics and approaches are implemented in the Gateway Lab in order to improve the first-year course. In a novel instructional experiment, the subject of Finite Element Analysis As A Design Tool has been introduced into the first-year course. In industry, design engineers begin with computer-aided design software to develop a product and then must subject the design to analysis to determine, for example, if the product will break, be difficult to manufacture, or be deficient in a way that might affect the use of the product. The analysis part is generally done by the so-called finite element method and involves concepts that traditionally are provided only in upper-division course work.

Finite element analysis (FEA) is a powerful computational tool that provides approximate solutions to physical problems that cannot be solved analytically, i.e., most design problems. It entails dividing a physical object into a large set of discrete elements that approximate geometrically the object under study and then applying the appropriate physical laws to each of the linked individual elements. A very large number of relatively simple iterations are performed on the approximate system to arrive at an accurate approximation. The results are used to modify the design, and the analysis is repeated as often as necessary to obtain a desired design result.

FEA is the most widely used computational tool for numerical analysis in almost every industry. Modern computational FEA applications include not only powerful numerical techniques but also user-friendly, graphical techniques that simplify the process of constructing the elements and their equations. A decade ago, FEA was used only by experienced engineers in industry and taught to graduate students. In recent years, as the speed of computers has increased greatly and the associated FEA software has attained a high level of user friendliness, finite element methods� usage has migrated into the upper levels of the undergraduate curriculum in many institutions. Two industrial-strength commercial software packages that utilize finite element modules for design analysis�I-DEAS and Pro-Engineer�are provided by the Gateway Lab and used in upper-level design courses. They enable exceptional multi-dimensional visual displays of the input and output of loads, displacements, temperature fields, heat fluxes, stress-strain fields, fluid velocity fields, etc., depending upon the physical problem.

To introduce FEA into a first-year course is a challenging experience. To set up and perform the requisite operations normally requires a level of knowledge not possessed by first-year students. Student instructors have developed a combination of scripts, C code, and I-DEAS or Pro-Engineer modules to enable first-year students to vary physical model parameters and to generate finite element models automatically.

In the first computational experiments, an easily grasped physical problem was posed. A cantilevered, two-dimensional triangular shaped steel bracket of given dimensions with a hole near the center was subjected to a load distributed along one edge of the bracket [fig.1].

It was desired to find the size and location of the largest hole that would keep stresses below the allowed maximum while minimizing the weight of the bracket. The students were given some indication how the stress distribution varies as the hole is moved and resized. Prior to this, the students were introduced in an elementary fashion to such concepts as stress, strain, stress concentrations, safety factors and ultimate tensile strength [fig.2].