Courtroom FEA: FEA = Finite Element Analysis
Legal Article GuideBy: Steve Roensch
As a product liability professional, it is important that you know what Finite Element Analysis (FEA) can do for you. If you don't, your adversary might. Whether you serve plaintiffs, defendants or both, you're probably already familiar with FEA.
Simply put, if a loss, injury or death is due to something bending or breaking, FEA can help explain the failure.
An experienced FEA expert can determine the stresses and displacements in the failed part. When compared to industry standards, earlier designs and competitive designs, this often identifies the cause of failure, and hence the responsible party.
As in any field, your choice of an expert is important in making your case. It's not unusual for an inexperienced FEA analyst to generate incorrect results; this is both a warning to the wise and a strategy for dealing with the other side's expert.
FEA results lend themselves to color plots and animations, making conveying the key concepts to the jury much easier.
Many companies use FEA, for good reason. FEA of critical design components, be they in the early design stage or on the engineering change list, can greatly enhance the overall product quality. This is accomplished by ensuring that the design can meet deformation, stress, vibration and/or temperature specifications for specified worst case configurations. FEA can also reduce product cost significantly, especially if applied early in the design cycle. Analysis results identify critical areas which carry the bulk of stresses caused by deformation or vibration, as well as less important areas in which a material reduction may be possible. The number of prototypes required can usually be reduced. Finally, the cost of a field repair or replacement will usually be many times the cost of a finite element analysis.
(Graphics for this article are available at www.finiteelement.com/newsletter/CourtroomFEA_Vol01.html)
Steve Roensch is a mechanical engineering consultant with more than 20 years of professional experience. He has analyzed hundreds of product designs and has served as an expert witness across many industries, including giving depositions and court testimony. Learn more about mechanical engineer expert witness services at http://www.FiniteElement.com.
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