Static Analysis in FreeCAD with FEM Workbench _ FreeCAD Tutorial _ FreeCAD FEM _ Mechnexus _
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May 19, 2025
Static Analysis in FreeCAD with FEM Workbench _ FreeCAD Tutorial _ FreeCAD FEM _ Mechnexus _
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Hello friends welcome to freeCAD tutorial and in this tutorial we are going
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to do FE ysis in freeCAD with the help of a FEM workbench in freeCAD and
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we will do the ysis of this L-shaped joint and we will study is deformation
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and stresses in freeCAD you can also visit my website macnexus.com where I
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I write articles and tutorials on free CAD you can also download my tutorial
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source file from the here you can also support my work by buying my free CAD
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crash course for beginner it is a very basic level course for the beginner user
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where a beginner user can master the free CAD and you can also support my
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work on coffee.com you can buy me a cup of coffee you will get my website link
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and my Ko-Fi donation page link in a video description I will close this file
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and I will show you from the scratch how you can do the same FEA ysis which I
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have a did in free CAD now I will create a new file and I have activated part
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design workbench I will create my body on my origin plane and on this plane XY
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I will create my part I will of the origin plane I will select the polyline
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tool and create my L shaped part now I will make this vertical
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this and this horizontal and this will be the vertical now I will give my dimensions
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hundred this one will be the hundred and this one will be the thirty
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thirty and now here I apply the fillet
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and I will give it 5 mm now I will close my sketch
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and I will click on the path tool and I will give it a thickness 5 mm
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now on this face I will create two holes I will project the edges
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now I will give the dimension 30
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this 115 I will give this and this 15 and this and this 30 now I will give this diameter 15 mm and I will make this and this equal Now I will click on the pocket tool and remove the material
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now our part is ready for the FE ysis so we will switch to the FEM workbench
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now here on the FEM workbench first we will create a container for our ysis
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where we apply the material create the meshes and run the results
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so on here you will get an icon known as ysis container and our next step is
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to apply the material to our body so I will select my body and click on material
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for solid so here I will select my material so in my case I am going to
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select the steel IC 45 so once you select the material you will get its
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properties so density is a 7800 which means that the steel IC 45 is a
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carbon steel or I can select some density up to the 7850 let's see
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steel okay this is the better material of density 7900 now I will click OK now we have applied the
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material now we will apply the forces and we will fix our part at one end so this hole will be the
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fix so here you will get the icon constraint fix click on add select the
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face so you can see that fix symbol has been inserted say ok now we will apply
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the forces fix means that this hole is fixed either with us bolt or any other
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method either maybe it will be welded so this is the fix and we will apply the
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forces to apply the forces you will see one icon here constraint forces click on
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it click on add select the surface so now you are seeing the force direction on
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the right hand side if you want to your reverse your direction just click on
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reverse direction so you can see that arrow has been reversed but I wanted to
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apply the forces on this direction so click on OK now next step is to apply
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the mesh so in freeCAD FEM workbench we have two types of the mesh if we select
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our body we can see here two mesh first one is a fem mesh from netgen and
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second one is a gmesh so we will go with a netgen so we will click on it and here
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max size and second order we will tick mark it so on max size we will give the
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five and the second order second order is the more precise let me explain with
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the images so this first one is a first order and we see only four nodes but on the second order is a tetrahedron elements and we see number of nodes are more as compared to first order so in a fe ysis more finer your mesh more precise results you
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will get so we will go with a second order and click on the apply so you can see that
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mesh has been created triangular count is a 1230 notes and other value is given here
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so tetrahedron count is a 1535 which i have shown this one so we will click on OK and
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here we are seeing the blue tick mark so we will click on refresh now we have
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model our body we have apply the material we have apply the forces so in
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forces here I forgot to apply the load so load I will apply 500 Newton click on
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okay now we will move to the next step and next step is our solving stage so
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here on a few workbench you will get an icon of solver click on it and now you
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can see that solver has been added double click on it so our ysis is a
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statics so we have selected statics here and click on write INP file and write is
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completed and then run on calculus so our calculation is running so once you
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get this message calculus done without an error which means that our result is
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ready close it now to see the result double clean on the calculus results so
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here is our results now we will read the results and what are the results are
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showing here first one is a displacement so we can see that max displacement is a
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75.75 micron and here is a displacement factor so displacement factor we will keep 5 so 5
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means that it is a 5 times more displacement than its actual size so if we increase our
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displacement so that you can see that how part is deforming so we will keep it up to
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the five times so this is the displacement and you can also get here
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one misses stress if you click on it so you can see that stress is acting you
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You can get other factor as well like displacement in x,y and z directions, maximum principal
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stresses, minimum principal stresses, where it is acting, maximum shear stresses like this
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Now we will on our body. Now click on the calculus results and click here post pipeline from results
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So you can see that a graph has been inserted here. Now click on result pipeline and click on here wrap filter
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On here wrap filter mode is a surface field is a displacement
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We are more interested in a displacement on apply and ok and hide this CCX results sorry hide this result pipeline
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so now you will have the clear idea how much stresses is acting and how much
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displacement you are getting with respect to the graph now let's see what if we make
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the changes to our model so here we have applied the radius of 5 mm now we will change the
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radius to the 5 to 30 mm and we will see the results again so for this I will activate
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my body go to the pad sketch and here I will make it 30
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before that I will delete these results
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So you can see that radius has been updated here. Now activate our ysis and again activate this solver and write INP file and then run calculus
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Calculus done without error. Now we will click on the results
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So some graphical issue on if you see perpendicular. Now here we can see the displacement with our actual body
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it is deforming so we will keep our factor 5 say ok now click on the calculus results
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on post pipeline results then click on post pipeline result and click on the wrap factor
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and again in field section select the displacement and say ok and hide this result pipeline so
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you can see that our new result with a modified radius has been updated and this FEM workbench
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is very pretty handy and you can change the shape you can change the material and you
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can do multiple calculations based on the shapes and material in free CAD FEM workbench
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so this is a very simple tutorial on FEM workbench of L-shaped joint
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in future I will take some more complex FEM ysis till now you can practice this with the help of FEM workbench
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and I will provide this source file in a video description so that you can
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practice it and also visit my website macnexus.com for articles and tutorials on a free cad
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I will come with more useful tutorial like this. Thank you for watching and thank you for your valuable time