MPanel FEA connects a powerful finite element analysis engine with an easy to understand user interface, to give you a robust solution to non linear FEA. The MPanel FEA interface reads a standard MPanel model and builds an FE model ready for analysis. Then the solver is run, to determine the model displacements for the load conditions, such as wind effects and snow cover. MPanel FEA works with both AutoCAD and Rhino.
MPanel FEA determines the fabric stresses, cable tensions, and corner reactions for a tensile structure under different loading conditions. This is a specialized problem, as the solution has to cope with orthotropic material properties, fabric wrinkling, slack fabric, slack cables, and large structure deformations.
The FEA interface has been designed to simplify this problem to a series of easily understandable steps.
