Hi there,

Just a short opinion.

Clamped shoe support analysis by FEA would be extremely complex and require performant software (ansys, abaqus etc.) to handle contact elements' based non-linear analysis. In addition, clamp bolting load should be modelled suitably.
As far as I know, I don't think at this time FE Pipe software, for instance, may be used to achieve all the assessments described above...or, maybe, it can be, but definitely not based on typical templates, and rather using advanced capabilities which cannot be easily found.

So, Borzki opinion is fair enough.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of "specialists" whose FEA "knowledge" are based on nice-graphics brochures' presentations/advertisements, instead of actual modelling work experience, but claim everywhere that clamped shoe supports may (or must!) be evaluated by FEA!

Cheers!