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SOLIDWORKS 2022 What’s New – Simulation Bonding and Contact Architecture

September 16, 2021 by Kurt Kurtin

In this 2022 release of the SOLIDWORKS Simulation software code changes related to contact resulted in additional performance improvements. These are happening “behind the scenes”, but their effect is evident in faster solution times, especially for studies that use the FFEPlus iterative solver with a large percentage of nodes participating in bonded contact interactions. In summary, the code changes reduce the overhead by 1) removing duplicate degrees of freedom in the bonding and contact equations, 2) optimizing a parameter associated […]

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Gyroscopic Precession in SOLIDWORKS Motion

August 17, 2021 by Kurt Kurtin

If you’ve ridden a bicycle, you’ve benefitted from the gyroscopic force that helps keep you upright. You may have also seen or participated in a demonstration of pivoting in a chair simply by applying torque to the axle of a spinning wheel. It’s fascinating to experience such a force acting in a very non-intuitive way! I put SOLIDWORKS Motion to the test to see how well it simulates this physics concept known as gyroscopic precession. As you’ll see below, I […]

SOLIDWORKS Simulation and Flying – Watch your approach!

July 6, 2021 by Kurt Kurtin

Think for a minute, if you will, about what it takes to fly and land an airplane. In this blog, I’ll use the analogy of flying an aircraft to present some fundamental considerations related to performing finite element analysis (FEA) with SOLIDWORKS Simulation, or any FEA tool for that matter! As you will see, these two activities have much in common! Cessna 152 vs. 340 – Two very different aircraft. First of all, an important consideration is to know what […]

Rolling Motion – It’s a race in SOLIDWORKS MOTION!

May 25, 2021 by Kurt Kurtin

Since we are currently in the middle of the high stakes horse racing season here in America, I was inspired to have a virtual race! I am an engineer, so instead of horses, I am going to use SOLIDWORKS Motion to race two solid cylinders down a ramp under the influence of gravity, soap box derby style – go ahead and call me a geek, it is OK. With full rigid body dynamics capabilities including inertia, gravity and solid body […]

SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation Meshing – Global Manual Settings: Part 2

April 13, 2021 by Kurt Kurtin

This blog continues the quest to understand the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) mesh settings in SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation that I initiated in my first blog. The focus there was on the global automatic settings. I followed that with Part 1 of global manual settings. Here, I continue to describe other manual settings, specifically the Small Solid Feature and Curvature controls. As stated previously, the goal is to create an accurate mesh without an excessive cell count that will allow an […]

SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation Meshing – Global Manual Settings: Part 1

March 9, 2021 by Kurt Kurtin

With Flow Simulation projects, the goal is to create an accurate mesh without an excessive cell count that will allow an efficient and accurate solution.

Flow Simulation Meshing: Global Automatic Settings

January 19, 2021 by Kurt Kurtin

Global automatic mesh settings allow you to start making a good CFD mesh in Flow Simulation.

Beam loaded about neutral axis and shear center

Neutral Axis, Shear Center and Beam Meshing in SOLIDWORKS Simulation

December 8, 2020 by Kurt Kurtin

Beam meshing has been available in SOLIDWORKS Simulation for many years and is an excellent way to represent structural members in the analysis of frame assemblies. Beams are one dimensional line elements that incorporate the cross-sectional properties of the member into the element formulation instead of explicitly capturing the details as with a solid mesh. This allows the efficient calculation of axial, shear and bending stresses within the member, whereas a solid mesh can become prohibitively large since it requires […]

SOLIDWORKS 2021 What’s New – SW Plastics Enhanced Modeling of Sketch-Based Runners

October 28, 2020 by Kurt Kurtin

As noted in the many blogs you’ve likely seen in the CATI What’s New series, SOLIDWORKS Plastics has been significantly enhanced in the 2021 release. Check out the two key enhancements to the sketch-based runner design that will contribute to more accuracy in your injection molding simulations! The SOLIDWORKS modeling APIs are now used by the algorithm, resulting in more realistic shapes of the runner cross-sections and junctions. An enhanced meshing scheme applies tetrahedral elements at the runner core and […]

SOLIDWORKS 2021 What’s New – Simulation Solver Enhancements

October 6, 2020 by Kurt Kurtin

Have you ever wondered how the characters in those sci-fi movies come up with technical calculations so quickly in their head to save the lives of all when in a serious life-or-death situation? “We’ve got just enough fuel to safely reach Planet Xterron if we keep our speed under warp 9.5. We’ll be only 0.0725 light years ahead of the enemy, but out of range of their photon ray guns!” I’d be in a severe panic, misplace more than just […]