The aim of this book is to provide professional engineers and students of engineering with a sound working knowledge of the finite element method for engineering analysis and engineering design. This readable text will serve as a guide both to the method, and to its implementation in PAFEC (Program for Automatic Finite Element Calculations) software. PAFEC software has gained worldwide acceptance and is used extensively by the academic and industrial community. The book concentrates on PAFEC software, but this should not be regarded as a limitation: the software is generally available and if other software is to be used, the book will still fulfil its major role in providing an introduction and guide to efficient and effective finite element practice. The book is divided into three sections. The introduction and chapter 1 present a predominantly non-mathematical guide to the history, development and underlying theory of the finite element method. The second section (chapters 2 to 5) presents the detail of the implementation of the finite element method in PAFEC software: this second section will be of considerable help to the new user of PAFEC software. The final section (chapters 6 to 11) takes a selection of real problems and shows in step-by-step detail how they can be analysed. At all times there is an emphasis on the practical nature of the problems, and a "what to do and why" approach is adopted throughout.