Topic outline

  • General

    Finite Element Method, Spring 2024, period III-IV

    Prerequisites:

    - MS-C1343 Linear Algebra (or other basic++ knowledge of matrices)
    - Knowledge of Matlab
    - Basic knowledge of (partial) differential equations

    Passing the course

    The course can be passed by two methods:

    1. (Recommended) You complete the final project and get enough exercise points to have an exercise grade > 0. You attend the exam at the end of the course and get at least grade 1 from the exam. Then your Grade = (0.6*Exercises_grade + 0.4*Course_exam_grade).
    Exercise grade is computed by the formula Exercise_grade = (exercise_points / (max_exercise_points) * 8 - 3), truncated between [0, 7]. max_exercise_points is defined as the sum of standard exercise points (i.e. by doing bonus exercises you may achieve Exercise_grade > 5).

    2. (Not recommended) You only participate in an extremely difficult and hope crushing exam organized at the same time as course exam. Then your grade is entirely determined by the exam.

    On top of the exam and the exercises, the course will also contain a group project done in groups of 2-3 where you can get more deeply familiar with some aspect of FEM. You will present your projects and the presentations will be graded as pass or fail, i.e. you will not get a numerical grade from the presentation.

    Lectures and other sessions

    There are two lecture times every week, Wednesday 12:15-14:00 and Thursday 10:15-12:00. However, on some weeks the second lecture might instead be an interactive coding session where you may start doing the coding problems of the week.

    Course material is covered primarily in the lecture notes and short lecture videos found in the lecture note.

    Exercises

    Each week a set of 3 standard exercises is published. The exercises will be indicated in the lecture note. Each problem is worth 2 exercise points and is graded at a resolution of 0.5 points. For full points, the logic of your solution must be correct and complete, and presented in a way that it can be reasonably easily understood. Furthermore, model solutions are published.

    Each week we also publish bonus exercises worth a varying number of exercise points (½, 1 or 2). You may return up to 2 bonus problems, clamped to a maximum of 2 exercise points each week. Bonus problems are graded as correct/incorrect and no feedback is provided. No model solutions are provided.

    The exercises are found inside the lecture note (see Lecture Note tab). The exercises are returned on MyCourses (see Exercises tab) and they are due on Tuesdays 23:59.

    Zulip

    You will have a chance to ask questions about the weekly exercises on Zulip. Zulip is a chat platform which is used in many Aalto courses. The assistant will try to help you with your questions there. See the Zulip tab on the left hand side.

    Contact information

    Lecturer: Antti Hannukainen (M308), email: first.last@aalto.fi

    Assistant: Antti Autio (M329), email: first.2.last@aalto.fi (Note the 2!)