By Julien BOISSAT<\/em><\/h5>\nIn SOLIDWORKS\u00ae Flow Simulation, you can define Solar radiation by location, time and weather. If you want to simulate the solar radiation conditions in some place you just need to select one of the cities available in Engineering Database and specify date, time and weather conditions (cloudiness). You can also add your own locations to Engineering Database or you may specify the latitude and hemisphere directly. In the case of transient analysis, the solar radiation parameters will change with time, allowing you to simulate movement of the sun during the day.<\/h5>\nThere are many industries that can make use of this: HVAC, architecture, consumer products, etc. This type of simulation is easy to set up.<\/h5>\nTo illustrate this, what would be more timely and appropriate than an example showing how the shadow of a parasol follows the motion of the sun? Let\u2019s consider this model:<\/h5>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/1-101-615x267.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In defining the Physical Features of your project, select Conduction, Radiation and Time-Dependent. For simplicity and solution time, you can unselect Fluid Flow.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2-93.png\")
<\/p>\n
In the Solar radiation branch, you can select the location, day and time of your choice.<\/p>\n
In the Calculation Control Options, set the duration of the simulation as the Physical time. Define the Time step of the simulation and the delay between saved results in the Solving and Saving tabs respectively. In the present case, these can be relatively large. Saving results every 6 minutes for a total duration of 3 hours produces 36 images in the animation of the results. This is sufficient to clearly see the how the shadow of a parasol follows the motion of the sun.<\/p>\n
The sharpness the shadow is a direct consequence of how fine your mesh is. Refine the mesh sufficiently.\u00a0You can create an animation and save it as an animated gif. See below.<\/p>\n
There are many industries that can make use of this: HVAC, architecture, consumer products, etc. This type of simulation is easy to set up.<\/h5>\nTo illustrate this, what would be more timely and appropriate than an example showing how the shadow of a parasol follows the motion of the sun? Let\u2019s consider this model:<\/h5>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n