Stress measurement in FEA
I am a CAE Engineer working at an organisation in India. I am having doubts about some of the methods used in FEA, particularly how stress contours are post processed. I am being asked to report stress in FEA reports by averaging several nodal stress values around the actual maximum nodal value (singularities have been taken care of). I don't have a clue if something like this is actually legit, cuz the only explanation my seniors gave me was that - FEA is an approximate approach, we need to use our own judgement on top of the software's response to your modelled problem, which doesn't tell me much about the reason.
So if there are any experienced pros that can shed some light on this topic on how they post process stress results OR if someone can tell me what the right way is backed by any credible sources would be helpful.....