Faraz Iqbal | Mechanical Engineer

This programming project was done as a requirement for a graduate finite element methods course with the purpose of gaining an understanding for the mathematics and the programming used to create many of the common commercial FEA software that is already being used in industry. Since this was done for educational purposes, there are a few limitations of the program: all elements must be either all linear or all quadratic, an applied flux can only exist at one of the ends of the object, there can only be exactly one temperature boundary condition and exactly one applied flux, and if the problem requires non-constant cross-sectional areas, material properties, or heat source values, a large number of elements have to be used to make an accurate estimation. Further, this program is limited to one-dimensional problems, and the results of such an FEA problem can be represented with a simple 2D plot. 

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If desired, this program can also be modified to allow for more complex problems, such as transient heat conduction, nonlinear heat conduction, and multi-dimensional heat conduction. The lattermost will require a different method of plotting the results, however all the desired information for solving the problem can still be obtained.