What are “Degrees of Freedom” when working with FEA models and why do they matter? If you're new to FEA, this is a good concept to get a grasp of early on. If you are experienced, you may not have ever run into any problems related to degree of freedom limitations in finite elements – or maybe you have and just didn’t know it.

This concept is particularly important when you begin to mix different element types – solid, shell, and line based elements – in the same model and attaching them together.

The following video presents these concepts in some depth. Although the software used is Autodesk Nastran In-CAD, these concepts are quite universal and apply to any FEA platform.