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Using COMSOL to Improve Experiment

I was just reading a news report from the Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. There, Dr. Huber is running a program where seniors perform experiments on cantilever beams and their responses to acoustic waves, both in the air and under water.

Comparing Results

Senior John Schmidt matched his experimental results on a perfectly functional cantilever beam with both an analytical model and one performed in COMSOL Multiphysics. He now hopes to match results from a damaged beam with that from a COMSOL model. (Find the article from Gustavus Adolphus College here)

This got me thinking. If a finite-element model gives the same results as both an analytical model and experiment, then I suppose you can trust the finite-element model for other dimensions of a similar cantilever beam. Yet, if it then gives the same results as the experimental results from a damaged cantilever beam, can we trust the finite-element model to simulate other damaged cantilever beams? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, feel free to leave your comments and ideas on our Facebook page.