The documentation of any project is an important but often overlooked phase of the work. The objective of documentation is to provide a self-standing description that another engineer can work from to duplicate the work. As such it must be complete and should contain at least all of the following:

1. A problem statement giving the objective of the work, a sketch that provides all geometry (including section properties), loadings, material properties, and boundary conditions.
2. A screen image or plot of the mesh(es) used showing boundary conditions, loadings, and all or just the important node and element numbers (in the second case, just note those on the plot by hand).
3. Program listings of all or just the important calculated results (displacement, stress, temperature, etc.).
4. A summary of the results indicating where in the model critical values occur.
5. Conclusions where appropriate. When comparing calculated values with independently found results (theoretical, experimental, etc), report the per cent error or per cent difference between the two values.

Examples

Example 1 Truss Problem

Example 2 Plane Stress Example

Example 3 Vibrations Example

Example 4 Thermal Example

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