SOLIDWORKS
SolidWorks Routing – Putting Power Into Your Designs
SolidWorks has a wealth of tools for designing machines and control systems, but how do we make them go? As a mechanical engineer I always felt a them and us relationship existed between the 'clankies' and the 'sparkies'. We design
... ContinuedStep up to a new level of 3D!
Equip yourself for design success with 3D Power Features for productivity and validation in SolidWorks Professional and Premium. The world of 3D design is fiercely competitive. Designers and engineers need to take advantage of any technologies that can keep their
... ContinuedCongratulations to The University of Michigan Solar Team
On Saturday, The University of Michigan (U-M) solar racing team won its fourth consecutive American Solar Challenge (ASC), which is a 1,600 mile, week-long endurance race that began in Rochester, NY and concluded in St. Paul, MN. The win earned
... ContinuedAssembly Visualization – the search for the missing file properties
Releasing your drawings to the machine shop with missing information makes a machinist angrier than a baby boomer looking at a teenager that doesn’t have his pants pulled up all the way. As we all know, looking through a large
... ContinuedDemystifying the Color Settings in SolidWorks Parts and Assemblies
Applying colors to parts and assemblies in SolidWorks is not a difficult task, but one must be aware of the many levels at which color can be applied as well as what feature colors ‘overrule’ one another. Colors can be
... ContinuedMaximize SolidWorks Performance White Paper
Adrian Fanjoy and myself began doing performance testing for SolidWorks four years ago. We have presented those results at SolidWorks World each year as we have continued to refine our tests. This past year we partnered up with BOXX Technologies
... ContinuedLicense vs. Subscription: What’s the Difference?
The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge. -Thomas Berger A very common question we receive here at SolidWorks (actually one of the top 5) is the difference between a subscription and a license.
... ContinuedUsing Curvature Combs to Inspect Curvature
One of my favorite ways to inspect curvature is to use curvature combs. These are graphical elements that display the amount of curvature at a given point on a sketch element. They’re fantastic for predicting problem areas in sketches, especially
... ContinuedRun Simultaneous Simulations
Written by Senior Applications Engineer, Al Zullo. Starting with SolidWorks Simulation 2009, we have been granted the ability to run a Simulation study while continuing to work on other models in SolidWorks or even shut SolidWorks down while the Simulation
... ContinuedBreaking a World Record with SolidWorks!
There seems to be a few sporting events going on this summer; one in London seems to be a bit of a big deal and it got me thinking. Could I use SolidWorks to discover something about the track and
... ContinuedSolidWorks Tip: Part Review Instead of Rollback
With the 2012 version SolidWorks nearing the end of its release, and 2013 beta available for download and testing, I thought I'd mention a new add-in that SolidWorks snuck in to the 2012 release called the Part Reviewer. Like most
... ContinuedCH Products reduces prototyping time investment by 90% using SolidWorks
When the computer gaming controller market became saturated, CH Products sought to leverage its pioneering expertise in advanced motion-control technologies through the development of new markets, including industrial, military, and aviation applications. Making the transition from gaming to more sophisticated
... ContinuedDissolving Subassemblies for Indented BOM
The Indented Bill of Materials style will list all subassemblies as an item, along with all components of the subassembly. If you have a subassembly that should only list the parts but keep all other subassemblies as indented, you can dissolve subassemblies
... ContinuedVideo double feature: SolidWorks makes designing & documenting sheet metal parts simple
SolidWorks Premium has lots of tools and features that give you the control to handle the unique challenges of sheet metal design. You can design from scratch or convert your 3D model to sheet metal. Designs can be automatically flattened
... ContinuedAssuming Linearity: Linear Static vs. Nonlinear
Background
SolidWorks has several different tools available for analyzing structures. Static analysis (discussed in my previous blog article) is available with the purchase of SolidWorks Simulation (included in SolidWorks Premium). Nonlinear analysis is available with the purchase of SolidWorks Simulation Premium (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 – SolidWorks Simulation study types
When a force is applied to a structure (a pencil, a building, a fixture, etc.) the internal pressure in the structure builds up. We call this internal pressure, stress. As stresses rise, the structure gets longer or shorter. We call this elongation, strain. When we run a Static analysis, we are assuming that the relationship between stress and strain is a simple one; we assume the relationship is linear. By making this assumption, we can potentially make an otherwise difficult or sometimes impossible problem very easy to solve.
However, this assumption isn’t all true. In reality, the relationship between stress and strain is never “perfectly” linear. But this assumption is close enough for many scenarios, and the amount of error it introduces may be negligible.
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