Blog

The NAFEMS blog features industry news, a raft of technical topics, thought leadership, and all the latest from the analysis community.

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Stick Forward, Full Opposite Rudder

by Tony Abbey, FE Training As you may have guessed from the title, this week’s blog has an aviation theme. Many years ago I used to be a flying instructor and I spent most weekends, when the weather was good, teaching people to fly. I was reminded of all this a few days ago when browsing through an aviation magazine. The instructing scene has changed dramatically since I flew, with many new

FE Training

07 March 2013

FEA for Managers & Reviewers - Q&A

by Tony Abbey, FE Training This week I presented a very short free webinar to a mainly US based audience on the topic ‘FEA for Managers and Reviewers’. This was a collaborative effort between NAFEMS and Desktop Engineering (DE). DE is a US based magazine focussing on CAD, CAM and CAE and I write a monthly article for them. The webinar was based on the March 2013 article of the same name.We had

FE Training

08 March 2013

Excuse me, how do I switch it on?

by Tony Abbey, FE Training One of the most enjoyable aspects of the training that I carry out is the travelling involved. I have been very fortunate to teach in many countries around the world and to visit many interesting places. Often this involves flying into an airport, picking up a rental car and then heading off to my hotel on the first night. One of the great blessings has been the

FE Training

19 March 2013

A Train of Thought

by Tony Abbey, FE Training Earlier this year I travelled from London to Glasgow for a meeting. That gave me the opportunity to ride on a railway train for the first time in Britain since the era of British Rail. My memories are of a system that was starved for funds with much neglect and decay. Returning by rail to my hometown on one trip was a shock. The elegant Victorian station had been

FE Training

12 April 2013

The “Usual Suspects”

by Tony Abbey, FE Training I have been living in the US now for 13 years and occasionally I get a little nostalgic for the TV shows I grew up with in the UK. I found a DVD catalogue which included what in the US we call Cop Shows. The English vernacular I remember is Police Dramas. I ordered some old favourites such as “The Sweeney”, “The Professionals” and even an extraordinarily dated “Dixon

FE Training

20 May 2013

Anecdotal Evidence

by Tony Abbey, FE Training My Uncle started as a River Pilot on the English Humber River; a treacherous place with strong currents and constantly changing sandbanks. He then served in the Merchant Navy and was torpedoed twice. Post war he captained a survey and salvage ship for the Royal Air Force. This included marking out and monitoring offshore target ranges. A grim task was salvaging

FE Training

29 May 2013

Clyde Cessna's Famous Photo

by Tony Abbey, FE Training Every Saturday when I am in town I work as a part time volunteer at Yank’s Air Museum in Chino, California. If you are in the area please come and check it out, it is rather special. If I am there don’t forget to say hello. One of the museum aircraft has always intrigued me because of the photo blow-up set on an easel next to it. The aircraft is a Cessna A model, the

FE Training

29 August 2013

Unwind With A Little Post-Crash Mozart

by Tony Abbey, FE Training I had the privilege of attending the NAFEMS World Congress in Salzburg in June. It was a busy time for myself and my e-learning colleague Kamran Fouladi as we gave a series of short classes to act as tasters for the full courses run throughout the year. It was very pleasant to meet NAFEMS members who had already attended the e-learning courses. Teaching the classes

FE Training

11 September 2013

Shot-Peening Over Coffee and Pie

by Tony Abbey, FE Training Firstly, I must make an apology for yet another aviation related blog intro. On Saturday I was offered, out of the blue, a ride in an open cockpit Stearman biplane from 1942. It has a 220 hp engine, but is quite a heavy plane at just over 2 tons fully loaded. It is also a tail dragger – a small wheel at the rear means it sits, taxies and lands in a nose up attitude.

FE Training

20 September 2013

Recent live NAFEMS on-site classes and other updates

by Tony Abbey, FE Training March was a hectic month - with three customized training classes in England and Scotland. First stop was Atkins Ground Engineering Group in Epsom, with a tailored Dynamics Analysis Course for some of the Geotechnical Engineering Staff.. Next up , Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) in Gaydon, where Tony taught the final Introduction to FEA for the 2014/15 intake. This is a

FE Training

01 May 2015