Finite Element Analysis Blog – LEAP Australia

Finite Element Analysis – LEAP Australia

LEAP Australia is the leading engineering software solutions provider in Australia and New Zealand, assisting thousands of companies with their design and engineering problems. The aim of this site is to share the extensive experience and knowledge we have gained over the years in working with Finite Element Analysis. If you are also interested in Computational Fluid Dynamics we encourage you to visit our CFD blog.

Powering Future Cost Savings and Sustainability in Mining: EPCA’s Retrofitting Journey

Mining has always demanded ingenuity, but the pressures of the past few years have sharpened that need considerably. For mine operators, the fastest way to capture both benefits isn’t always buying a brand-new fleet. Often, it’s retrofitting the diesel haul trucks they already own. In this guest blog, EPCA walks us through how their simulation-led retrofit approach compresses development timelines, preserves existing asset value, and delivers reliable, zero-emission haulage, even in the face of environmental and geopolitical headwinds.

Q&A with Esper Satellite: Hyperspectral Imagery for Earth Observation

Esper Satellite Imagery develops hyperspectral imaging sensors for low Earth orbit, delivering affordable, wide-spectrum data for agriculture, mining, and environmental monitoring. Their mission is to deploy 18+ sensors by 2028, providing global, high-frequency insights. LEAP sat down with Shoaib Iqbal, Co-founder and CEO of Esper Satellite Imagery to learn how Ansys simulation tools are helping Esper to achieve their goals.

Curling ‘Double-Touch’ scandal rocks the rink at Winter Olympics: Simulation with LS-DYNA proves the difference of one deft touch

One of the most talked about controversies from the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games revolved around accusations of teams “double-touching” the curling stone after its initial release. To quantify how even the slightest touch might alter the outcome of a curling match, we conducted two Ansys LS-Dyna simulations: one representing a perfectly clean release and the other including a minimal post-release force.

Improving CAE Workflows with Ansys OptiSLang

Product development cycles face competing pressures – accelerate development and ensure reliability, all while balancing cost control and flexibility to innovate. Since engineers are under constant pressure to deliver faster, safer, and more cost-effective designs, we need a way to evaluate trade-offs ‑early, before design freedom is lost. Ansys OptiSLang is built precisely for this purpose, by changing the paradigm from “simulate to check” to “simulate to discover”.

Applying Tangential Pressure in Ansys Mechanical – Transfer Chutes

Transfer chutes are very commonly used in bulk material processing and handling scenarios, particularly for bulk granular materials. When analysing the structural performance of a transfer chute, it’s important to consider how the flow of material will impact your design, and to then quickly evaluate the structural performance of the design under load. Whilst it’s straightforward to account for the normal component of pressure in a design, the tangential pressure is a trickier load to setup. In this blog, we’ll investigate how you can setup pressure loads to capture tangential pressures for a variety of transfer chute geometries.

NAFEMS Discovery Benchmark Series – Part 4: Axisymmetric Geometries

Our exploration of Ansys Discovery’s capabilities now shifts from general 3D geometries to a specialised yet widely encountered case: axisymmetry. Many essential components such as pipes, flanges and pressure vessels, exhibit rotational symmetry. In this section, we examine Discovery’s performance on axisymmetric problems using two established NAFEMS benchmarks, LE7 and LE8 – read on to see the results.

Ansys Sherlock for Electronic Life Assessment

Ansys Sherlock is a reliability tool for electronics components that allows engineers to make fast and accurate life predictions for their electronics hardware.
This post provides a high-level overview of how Sherlock can be used to examine a mission-critical PCB that is part of a module expected to make multiple trips out into orbit and then back to Earth.

NAFEMS Discovery Benchmark Series – Part 3: Simple Geometries

In part three of our NAFEMS Discovery Benchmark Series we move beyond simple plates to look at more complex 3D structures to ensure the software can accurately handle a broad spectrum of geometries including cylinders and cantilevers. Read on to see how Discovery handled this benchmark test.

NAFEMS Discovery Benchmark Series – Part 2: Pressure Plates

Part two in our NAFEMS Discovery Benchmark Series tackles pressure plates. The NAFEMS linear elastic benchmarks feature two problems where a plate is subjected to a pressure load. LE1 involves a thin elliptic structure stretched outwards by a pressure force, while LE10 uses the same plate, but thickens it and applies a higher pressure. Read on to see how Discovery handled this benchmark test.

NAFEMS Discovery Benchmark Series – Part 1: Introduction

In 1986, NAFEMS first published a set of benchmarks for FEA codes with the aim to develop a set of standard tests that would more critically allow developers and users to interrogate the performance of FEA software. In this NAFEMS Discovery benchmark series we put Ansys Discovery to the test against challenging benchmarks to see just how well this tool can improve your design workflow.