GuidesJuly 7, 2026

Stress analysis of a bracket — right in the browser

We imported a STEP model of a reference mechanical bracket, meshed it, applied a load, and got a full stress and displacement field — no install, entirely in the browser.

Von Mises stress field on the bracket, shown in the browser viewport

We imported a STEP model of a reference mechanical bracket (NIST CTC-01), meshed it, applied a load, and got a full field of stresses and displacements — entirely in the browser, no install. The whole finite-element engine runs on WebAssembly.

The task

A single solid body, imported from STEP. Material — steel (E = 200 GPa, ν = 0.3). The bracket is fixed at its mounting holes, with a uniform pressure applied across the front face. Linear statics.

Imported STEP geometry of the bracket in the WebCAE viewport — Geometry imported straight from STEP — no repair step needed.

The mesh

Tetrahedral, built automatically from the model's faces: 47,326 nodes, 220,313 elements.

Full tetrahedral mesh of the bracket — Full mesh — 47,326 nodes, 220,313 elements.

Close-up of the tetrahedral mesh near a mounting hole — Automatic local refinement around a mounting hole.

The results

The solution converged in the browser in ~15 s (iterative solver, sparse matrices). The plate deflects between the bolted spans, with stress concentrating around the fasteners and holes: max. displacement ≈ 0.26 µm, von Mises stress up to ≈ 2.5 MPa. Results are visualized right in the viewport — stress contours, displacement, and the deformed shape.

Nodes: 47,326
Elements: 220,313
Solve time: ~15 s
Max displacement: ≈ 0.26 µm
Max von Mises stress: ≈ 2.5 MPa

Displacement field on the bracket, mesh overlay visible — Displacement field, with the mesh overlay.

Von Mises stress field on the bracket, mesh overlay visible — Von Mises stress field, with the mesh overlay.

Displacement field on the bracket, shaded surface — Displacement field, shaded surface.

Von Mises stress field on the bracket, shaded surface — Von Mises stress field, shaded surface.

Geometry → mesh → loads → result — four steps, one browser session.