In this Chapter, one describes the finite element model used in all the examples. The Chapter is organized as follows:
In section IV.1.1, one presents the satellite’s structure and its finite element model.
The materials and element properties are described in section IV.1.2.
The conventions used for the numbering of nodes, elements and RBEs, and the groups that have been defined are given in section IV.1.3.
In section IV.1.4, the loads and boundary conditions used in the examples of Chapter IV.2 are presented.
Finally, one briefly describes in section IV.1.6 the way the FE model has been split into several bulk data files, and the organization of these files into several directories.