what is the importance of doing FEA in product design?

Answer 1

Firebird has a point, for consumer electronics (iPods, laptops, cell phones, Playstations, etc.) any kind of Failure Analysis (FEA, FMEA, FMECA, FTA, etc.) is unnecessary because when the thing fails nothing horrible happens except that the user is inconvenienced, and the thing is usually thrown away (or sometimes repaired).

However, for cirtical applications where human life is at stake (avionics for commercial aircraft, military hardware, space flight avionics, medical equipment, fire-protection equipment, alarm system, etc.) it is very important to know what the effects of the failure are, on those pieces of electronic equipment.

After analyzing a design (using some FEA) and discovering that a particular component failure might ultimately cause the death of a person or loss of an aircraft, the designer would definitely take a very close look at that component, perhaps changing the design; adding redundancy, or choosing a much higher quality-class component.

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Answer 2

Depends on what you are designing. I work on aircraft and spacecraft structures and finite element analysis is one of the most basic analysis that we do. We use it to calculate thermal loads, thermal conductance, stress, and stress concentrations. Every airplane flown since the '60's has had some level of FEA done.

Answer 3

It's not important. I daresay most of the products that have ever been available didn't have it done. Wouldn't you?