Courtroom FEA: FEA = Finite Element Analysis
30th December 2005
Author:
Steve Roensch | Views: 250
As a product liability professional, it is important that you know what Finite Element Analysis (FEA) can do for you. If you don't, your adversary might. Whether you serve plaintiffs, defendants or both, you're probably already familiar with FEA.
Simply put, if a loss, injury or death is due to something bending or breaking, FEA can help explain the failure.
An experienced FEA expert can determine the stresses and displacements in the failed part. When compared to industry standards, earlier designs and competitive designs, this often identifies the cause of failure, and hence the responsible party.
As in any field, your choice of an expert is important in making your case. It's not unusual for an inexperienced FEA analyst to generate incorrect results; this is both a warning to the wise and a strategy for dealing with the other side's expert.
FEA results lend themselves to color plots and animations, making conveying the key concepts to the jury much easier.
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Steve Roensch is a mechanical engineering consultant with more than 20 years of professional experience. He has analyzed hundreds of product designs and has served as an expert witness across many industries, including giving depositions and court testimony. Learn more about
mechanical engineer expert witness services at
www.FiniteElement.com.
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Occupation: Mechanical Engineer and Expert Witness
Steve Roensch is a
mechanical engineer with 23 years of professional experience in failure analysis and litigation consulting. He has analyzed hundreds of product designs and has provided
expert witness services across many industries, including giving depositions and court testimony.
Mr. Roensch has provided litigation consulting in the energy, construction, industrial, transportation, commercial, utility and residential industries. He has supplied legal team technical support, and has given depositions and testified in court and arbitration hearings.
Mr. Roensch specializes in analyzing the physical stresses that arise in a product under various loading conditions, and in determining if the design is sufficient to survive such loads. He investigates product failures and accidents from a fundamental engineering perspective, often applying finite element analysis. He documents his efforts thoroughly from the start, for concise presentation to the legal team, other experts and the jury. Complex engineering principles are explained using everyday concepts that everyone can understand. Color stress plots and animations are used whenever possible to convey complicated engineering results in an easy to understand visual format.
Learn more about
mechanical engineer expert witness services at
www.FiniteElement.com.
