The Unknown “Golden Tools” in SolidWorks Simulation

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I visited a SolidWorks Simulation customer few weeks ago to get his feedback on using SolidWorks Simulation solutions. After a brief introduction of what they are designing and who is using which engineering tools, they showed me a pretty long list of enhancement requests for SolidWorks Simulation. I was eager to get some innovative, “out of the box” ideas, but I found out that actually the majority of what they listed to become more productive and do more types of simulation is already available in the software, but they did not know about it.

This made me think that you, SolidWorks blog readers, might not be aware of some of the “golden tools” available in SolidWorks Simulation. So I’m inviting you to take the SolidWorks Simulation Discovery Tour! Buckle your seatbelts, and here we go!

I’m going to tell you about three of the productivity tools available in SolidWorks Simulation packages in addition to the analysis types. A quick reminder: SolidWorks Simulation capabilities include linear and nonlinear static analysis, time-based motion, frequency, buckling, thermal, drop test, fatigue, optimization, event-based motion, pressure vessel studies, composite material, and dynamic response, and you can speed up your product design with these added value tools.

Trend Tracker

Have you ever wanted to track the impact of successive design changes done on the fly on the base design of a static study? Trend Tracker offers you the tools to easily detect trends in results for different design ideas.

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Results are presented in a way that intuitively compares a baseline to subsequent iterations.  You start with a first static analysis and set it as your baseline, defining the engineering parameters to be tracked with the SolidWorks sensors (for example, Von Misses stresses). Each time you make a design change and want to capture its impact for your static results, just re-run the baseline study. As a result, sensitivity Graphs and the Trend Tracker gallery provide you the variation of your key engineering data from the baseline and subsequent iterations:

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Submodeling

The SolidWorks Simulation 2013 release added a fantastic productivity enhancement with the submodeling capability. The idea is to focus your detailed simulation on a portion of your design while taking into account the entire design. This saves you computation time and increases the accuracy of your simulation for this critical portion.

I am not going to detail the tool here, as we already have articles on the capability in this blog. Check them out!

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2013/04/solidworks-simulation-time-saver-sub-modeling.html

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2012/09/new-in-solidworks-2013-simulation-sub-modeling-and-incremental-meshing.html

Analysis Library

SolidWorks CAD users well know the Design Library for finding reusable elements, such as parts, assemblies and sketches, blocks, and annotations. Do you know that SolidWorks Simulation offers a similar experience for Analysis? The Analysis Library offers frequently used analysis features (such as load/restraint, contact condition, etc) that you create once and save in a library for future use. The process is very simple — right click on the boundary conditions and select “Add to Library”:

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This boundary condition is now available in the Analysis Library for re-use on other designs and projects.The Analysis Library contains by default common loads and support conditions, such as “Load due to self-weight” and “Convection with moving air”.

This is also available for SolidWorks Motion inside the Design Library with common motion definition:

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Try it now to automate the use of analysis items and boost your product innovation!

These are just three examples of the many productivity tools available in SolidWorks Simulation. Your SolidWorks Simulation package contains much more that you can discover in the online help.

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Delphine Genouvrier

Delphine Genouvrier

Delphine Genouvrier is a Director at Dassault Systèmes