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NAFEMS Publications Guide

This Guide includes all formal NAFEMS publications issued since the organisation’s inception in 1985 until the end of 2009. Some 158 documents are included, as well as the periodical “Benchmark”. In the early days of the organisation, emphasis was on producing well-defined benchmark tests and some basic Primers suitable for the practising engineer rather than the finite element theoretician. More recently, the emphasis has shifted to producing the “How To” and “Why Do” booklets, concerning particular aspects within the finite element and related technologies. Some specific reports were produced for the GEM, SAFESA, FENET and AUTOSIM projects, along with some concerning quality assurance and software management. Additional initiatives have produced workbooks and case studies with strong educational flavours as well as a series of one-day Seminar and multi-day Conference proceedings. All of these different types of publication are identified in this Guide.

The publications have generally been commissioned under the auspices of NAFEMS Working Groups, and so reflect user-driven demands and needs at the time of production. Some of the documents cover elementary introductions to theory and practice, whilst others are aimed at the more advanced reader. The total publication list provides a very comprehensive and important library base for the modern user of computer-aided engineering, particularly for the finite element method and covering virtually every aspect of the subject in varying degrees of complexity.

Each document is identified by a reference number, a tag of a few digits, such as FEP, P01, R0001, BMARK, etc. These appear on the NAFEMS publication lists, and are used in this Guide to identify documents in the main glossary sections. From these reference numbers, the full details of the document can be found by referring to the full publication list given in chapter 6.

An important function of this Guide is to identify all the NAFEMS publications and to lead the reader through the large amount of information contained within them. The chapters therefore contain complementary information for the issues that are thought to be of interest, and have been organised as follows:

  • Chapter 2, the main glossary of subject headings, including a brief explanation of the subject as well as a listing of related documents,
  • Chapter 3, a glossary of important technical terms which are relevant to and occur throughout the publications, again including a listing of related documents,
  • Chapter 4, a glossary of the many benchmark tests that have been produced and details of the documents in which they appear,
  • Chapter 5, a glossary of other material, where brief descriptions and references are given for the case studies, workbooks, the GEM, SAFESA, FENET and AUTOSIM projects, management of data and finite element analysis, quality systems and management, surveys, verification and validation, and proceedings,
  • Chapter 6, a complete listing of NAFEMS publications, sorted by reference number,
  • Chapter 7, a Table identifying the publications by subject and type of document.