Instructional FEA Code
Physics: Linear Direct Stiffness Method
Software: Matlab
Audience: Instructional use, 100+ students have interacted
I created this simple, fast, and modular direct stiffness method FEA solver for trusses in 2D and 3D. The code is optimized for two orthogonal goals: readability/clarity, and execution speed.
I also created a variety of supporting tools, including a GUI-based meshing software that allows students to trace the beam elements on architectural drawings (hosted on the Mathworks File Exchange under TrussGrabber), and a library of examples showing how to simulate complex scenarios (included in my GitHub repository).
The FEA code uses vectorization to execute fast assembly of global stiffness matrices, direct or iterative matrix inversion, and comes with visualization scripts.
The code also works well with related mass-spring-damper solvers I have written in Matlab for predicting the motion of soft, deformable bodies using explicit time integration. This code is stored under my GitHub repository MSD.