First Course in Finite Elements

The text material evolved from over 50 years of combined teaching experience it deals with a formulation and application of the finite element method. A meaningful course can be constructed from a subset of the chapters in this book for a quarter course; instructions for such use are given in the preface. The course material is organized in three chronological units of one month each: 1) the finite element formulation for one-dimensional problems, 2) the finite element formulation for scalar field problems in two dimensions and 3) finite element programming and application to scalar field problems; and finite element formulation for vector field problems in two dimensions and beams. In conjunction with the book there will be the access and use of ABAQUS software and MATLAB exercises.