Finite Element Method

The limitations of human mind are such that it cannot grasp the behavior of its complex surrounding and creations in one operation. Thus the process of subdividing all systems into their individual components or elements, whose behavior is all readily understood and then rebuilding the original system from such components to study its behavior is a natural way in which the engineer, the scientist or even the economist Proceeds .
The finite element method is a numerical method, which can be used for the solution of complex engineering problems with accuracy acceptable to engineers.
In 1957 this method was first developed basically for the analysis of aircraft structures.
There after the usefulness of this method for various engineering problems were recognized .over the years ,the finite element technique has been so well developed that ,today it is considered to be one of the best method for solving a wide variety of practical problems efficiently.
One of the main reasons for the popularity of the method in different fields of engineering is that once a general computer program is written ,it can be used for the solution of any problem simply by changing the input data.
In FEM since the actual problem is replaced by a simpler one in finding the solution we will be able to find only an approximate solution rather than the exact solution .In most of the practical problems, the existing mathematical tools are not even able to find approximate solution of the problem .Thus, in the absence of any other convenient method to find even the approximate solution of a given problem, we have to prefer the FEM.
The digital computer provided a rapid means of performing many calculations involved in FEA. Alongwith the development of high speed computers, the application of the FEM also progressed at a very impressive rate.