Top Ten Enhancements in SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2024

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Can you believe we’re in the fourth quarter of the year? I’m excited. The leaves are starting to turn, we’re sipping tea— more tea, I am English after all, bundling up in layers, and rocking the wellies as Autumn is here in the UK, as well as many parts of the US, including SOLIDWORKS’ home base in Waltham, MA. Hello hoodie weather, and hello SOLIDWORKS 2024.

The new releases of SOLIDWORKS drop this time of year, so it’s a good time to remind you about some of the top enhancements in SOLIDWORKS Simulation from 2023, that I hope you are making use of today. From creating custom bearing connectors by specifying stiffness in compression, tension, and bending to experiencing an accelerated, blended, curvature-based mesh process for parts and assemblies with identical bodies, and more. Learn how you can gain easier setup and faster simulation and save time with a more robust and efficient mesh process.

Let’s break down a few of the top 10 enhancements in SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2024:

  1. Enhanced Bearing Connectors – achieve more accurate setups with additional connector options.

This year we added the introduction of Distributed coupling and Tilt stiffness bearing connectors so you can easily create custom bearing connectors by specifying stiffness in compression, tension, and bending. The bearing connector enhancements are available for Linear static, Frequency, Buckling, and Linear dynamic studies.

The new connectors help improve simulation accuracy by adding custom compliance to nonlinear and large displacement studies.

  1. Mesh Performance Improvements – save time with a more efficient mesh process.

In Finite Element Analysis (FEA), the mesh is key, and a bad mesh and too dense a mesh results in an overly long solve time. With this year’s enhancements in SOLIDWORKS Simulation, you’ll experience an accelerated, blended, curvature-based mesh process for parts and assemblies with identical bodies. An improved mesh algorithm identifies identical parts that are repeated in an assembly. The algorithm reuses the same mesh for the identical parts instead of meshing each of them independently, saving you time.

To use the improved mesh algorithm, from the Default Options > Mesh dialog box, select “Reuse mesh for identical bodies (Blended curvature-based mesher only).

  1. Save Model on Solve Completion – protect your data from unexpected crashes with automatic saving.

You can set up the system to automatically save a model file after the meshing and analysis processes are finished.

To turn on automatic saving of a model file: Go to System Options > General tab, select “Save file after meshing and after the analysis completes.” Saving a model file automatically after meshing and after the completion of analysis prevents data loss in case of unexpected system crashes or power outages.

  1. Excluding Mesh and Results When Copying Study – set up multiple simulation scenarios faster.

This one is another great time saver as you can exclude your mesh and results data when copying a simulation study to a new study. Copying studies is a common task when evaluating product performance over In addition, you can specify global default settings to include or exclude mesh and results when copying a study from the Default Options > Solver and Results > Copy study dialog box. For individual studies, you can modify the default settings for Include mesh and Include results in the Copy Study PropertyManager.

  1. Accuracy and Performance Enhancements – perform more accurate simulation studies and solve faster.

There’s been several feature enhancements that improve the performance and accuracy of simulation studies including:

  • Results from studies with remote displacements or remote rotations that are applied to large faces with the Distributed connection are more accurate. The solution time for these studies is shorter with the Intel Direct Sparse solver. In previous releases, when the number of coupling nodes was very large, only a subset of the coupling nodes participated in the distributed coupling constraints. In SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2024, the distributed coupling constraints for remote displacements or remote rotations include all coupling nodes.
  • Running larger linear dynamic studies is more efficient. The stress calculation of larger linear dynamic studies is optimized because of improved memory allocation by the solver.
  • Improved memory estimate, allocation, and management by the solver allows the completion of large surface-to-surface bonded interaction sets that previously failed because of insufficient memory.

That’s a glimpse of the top five enhancements. To learn more about these and see all top 10 enhancements view the flyer here. Then have a look at what’s new in SOLIDWORKS 2024, coming soon in November.

If you haven’t added SOLIDWORKS Simulation to your toolkit you are missing out! There are many misconceptions about simulation, including the assumption you have to be a specialist to do simulation, but that’s simply not true. You may often hear me say “you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do simulation.” It’s true, and designers can do it too! Read my last blog on how it can benefit you.

Stephen Endersby

Stephen Endersby

Stephen Endersby is a Director of Product Portfolio Management at Dassault Systemes SOLIDWORKS. A passionate believer in the benefits of the early use of design analysis to optimize products for strength, durability and sustainability. Stephen is confident that every designer can make use of the simulation tools from Dassault Systems to improve product performance, and customer satisfaction while reducing their environmental impact and increasing a company’s market share. With over 20 years of experience Stephen has worked with companies of all sizes to help them overcome the many design to manufacture challenges they face. Well versed in the application of technology to deliver end user value and improve productivity, for Stephen technology changes but his desire to deliver solutions and value remains the same.