Better, faster, stronger (but not harder)

This entry is not about the song by French duo Daft Punk, even though I admit to being a fan. This is about an important enhancement in SolidWorks Simulation 2014: Performance.

Virtual simulation is now used as a 3D concurrent engineering tool by product engineers during each phase of the Product development cycle. To make the implementation of virtual simulation smoother and to get the full benefits of simulation while you are designing, you need to have in your hands both intuitive and powerful FEA software.

I think the SolidWorks solution is pretty well known regarding its ease of use, its intuitiveness which shorten the learning curve and open the door of virtual engineering to the masses. But did ou know that SolidWorks Simulation 2014 is more powerful than ever and offers significant enhancements in performance? The objective is to get your simulation results quicker, to be able to simulate large assemblies, and get the technical insights you need as soon as possible. Let me give you a sneak peak on the 2014 performance improvements:

1. A new solver for large models

The 2014 release includes, for all users, a new robust solver called “Large problem Direct Sparse Solver.” This solver is tailored to models that contain millions of degrees of freedom so you can efficiently solve simulations for large models, parts or assemblies.

Moreover, this new solver supports multiple cores, so not only can it solve very large problems in terms of 5 million or 10 million degrees of freedom (only limited by hardware), you can also do it a lot faster than before because of the multi core support. Let me give you an example; we have solved a large model with 8 million DOF in only 16 minutes, on a desktop computer with 2 CPUs and 12 cores (X64).

2. Large speed up in the Iterative Solver
SolidWorks Simulation 2014 boosts your calculations with a large speed-up of the iterative solver, which again is available to all users. The new version improves the multi-core support at a rate of around 10-15% and the convergence speed of contact simulations up to 40%!

Multi-core support improvements of the iterative solver

Are you ready to boost your FEA simulations with SolidWorks Simulation? Make sure to upgrade to the SolidWorks Simulation 2014 release and you will design better and stronger product faster than ever.

***

Want to learn more about SolidWorks Simulation? Check out our First Look at Simulation video to see how simulation could improve your own designs and reduce prototypes.