Finite element method
Método de los elementos finitos
- Date
- 1941 (Hrennikoff) / 1943 (Courant) · confidence medium
- Place
- New York City, United States
- Credited to
- Richard Courant (building on Alexander Hrennikoff's 1941 precursor)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Courant proposed dividing a continuous domain into small triangular subregions to numerically solve partial differential equations, an idea Hrennikoff had anticipated two years earlier with a lattice analogy. The method was independently rediscovered and developed in several countries before becoming widespread in engineering from the 1960s onward.
The method was independently rediscovered several times: by Feng Kang in China for dam calculations, and by Leonard Oganesyan in the USSR, before consolidating in the West with Clough, Argyris and Zienkiewicz in the 1960s.
What it led to
- Computer simulation in structural, aerospace and automotive engineering
- Modern CAE software (NASTRAN and similar)