SOLIDWORKS Simulation: Test Your Designs Before You Build Them

Your SOLIDWORKS designs are always changing, and to keep up, you need to get good products out fast. But with deadlines always looming and lots of changes, how do you know if you're on the right track? Powerful simulation tools built right into SOLIDWORKS can help you test complex situations, changing how engineers think about, build, and improve their creations. Let's see how SOLIDWORKS simulation is changing product development so you can find new ways to innovate.

Key Takeaways

• Test Functionality: Analyze how assemblies move, including things like motors and actuators, and consider real-world physics like friction. Check the range of motion and look for clashes to make sure your design works before you build a physical prototype.
• Check Strength: See if your designs can handle stress and last over time. You can use data from motion studies for stress analysis and leave out parts that aren't important to speed things up.
• Optimize Designs: Reduce weight while keeping your design strong by using optimization studies. Easily adjust dimensions and parameters to find the best design that saves the most weight.
• Analyze Vibrations: Understand how resonant vibrations can cause problems and find frequencies to avoid. You can copy studies to save time and see how your assembly behaves at different frequencies.
• Predict Real-World Behavior: Use frequency analysis and linear dynamic studies to understand how your product will perform over time, which can reveal more issues than a simple static analysis.

Understanding Functionality and Strength

Two main things designers worry about are how a product works and how strong it is. SOLIDWORKS is great for putting together complicated designs, but how do you know if it will actually function right? You can look at how assemblies move, adding things like motors and actuators. You also need to think about real-world stuff like friction and damping. Checking the range of motion and making sure parts don't clash helps you meet your design goals before you even make a physical prototype.

Manufacturing needs and other factors often cause design changes, but you have to make sure the product is still strong enough. You can check your designs for stress and fatigue to get a better idea of how your product will perform both right away and over its whole life. You can even pull engineering information from motion studies, like forces on bearings, to use in stress analysis. To make things faster, you can choose not to include parts that aren't needed in the analysis. Pick material properties from a big library that comes with the software. Set up connections like pins, springs, bolts, and bearings to see how parts interact. With tools that show results clearly, you can even cut through the model to see the safety factor, stress levels, and how much things move. Results change as you make adjustments, giving you instant feedback on how it's performing.

Predicting Lifespan and Optimizing Designs

Knowing if a product will work is important, but knowing how long it will last is just as big a deal. A quick check for fatigue can help make a design last longer and cut down on unexpected warranty problems. Engineers often want to make designs lighter while keeping them strong. But how do you know if you've found the best way to do that? SOLIDWORKS simulation lets you pick any dimensions or settings to create an optimization study. A slider bar makes it easy to try out different designs and find the one that saves the most weight.

Analyzing Dynamic Behavior and Vibrations

But stress isn't the only way a part can fail. Vibrations can cause big problems, especially in welded areas. You can easily copy parts, connections, fixtures, loads, and meshes from a static study to set up a new one faster. A quick animation of the results shows you the frequencies you need to watch out for and how the assembly will act at those frequencies. Frequency analysis is a good starting point, but moving that information to a linear dynamic study helps you understand how the structure reacts over time. Graphs of the response give you a better picture of stresses and movements that change, and might show bigger issues than a simple static analysis would find. These insights help you better guess how it will act in the real world.

The Power of Virtual Testing

SOLIDWORKS simulation lets you test your designs on the computer before you make them, which can save money, time, and effort spent on prototypes. But it doesn't stop there. With features for non-linear analysis, buckling, heat transfer, durability, and many other advanced simulation types, SOLIDWORKS simulation is really changing how products are developed, helping you find new ways to innovate. To find out more, get in touch with your local SOLIDWORKS partner.