SOLIDWORKS 2023 Top Enhancements in SOLIDWORKS Simulation

It’s that exciting time of the year again! This October, we get to show the public what’s new not only SOLIDWORKS 2023 CAD, but also SOLIDWORKS 2023 Simulation! Every year, SOLIDWORKS gives us new enhancements and tools to improve the performance, usability, and more of SOLIDWORKS Simulation. We review all the great customer feedback, and the developers at SOLIDWORKS use that information to improve SOLIDWORKS with each release.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the biggest new enhancements in SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2023. You can also watch this in video format:

Improved Underconstrained Bodies tool

In previous years, we used the Underconstrained Bodies diagnostic tool to detect any rigid (or free) body modes. Bodies that are not adequately supported by fixtures, connectors, or contact conditions can translate or rotate freely. The problem is that the rigid body movement did not offer a realistic visualization of the whole assembly.

In SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2023, the Underconstrained Bodies tool performs a Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) for faster detection of free body modes and a more realistic visualization of unconstrained displacements for the whole assembly. Also, SOLIDWORKS Simulation Professional and Premium users can use the Underconstrained Bodies tool to include contact interactions and bolt connectors when detecting rigid body modes of components. Check out Figure 1 below to see this in action.

Fig. 1 Underconstrained Bodies 2023

Penalty Stiffness Control for Contacts

New in SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2023, the Contact Penalty Stiffness Control tool allows you to set a scale factor of 1.0 to reach an accurate solution for studies with contact interactions in linear static studies. However, you can select a lower scale factor to obtain an approximate solution faster to assess design iterations and the overall behavior of the model. This will trade some contact pressure accuracy to achieve convergence easier, with faster solving times. See Figure 2 below to see a preview of how this looks.

Fig. 2 Contact Penalty Stiffness option

Bonding Between Nonfacing Surfaces

When creating bonded local interactions (contacts sets) on non-facing surfaces in previous years, the program would error out. This prevented you from creating the bonded connection in your preprocessing setup.

Now, in SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2023, we see great the bonding interaction has been improved by allowing surface-to-surface bonding on faces that are not facing each other and have no projection area between them. This new capability applies to linear static, frequency, buckling, linear dynamic studies, as well as fatigue and design studies associated with linear static studies. See Figure 3 below.

These were just a few of the great enhancements to SolidWorks Simulation 2023. The more advanced Underconstrained Bodies algorithm, the new Penalty Stiffness Control for Contact tool, and Bonding Between Nonfacing Surfaces and more will help you get convergence in your simulation results faster and with better accuracy.

Now go make your products even better with all the new SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2023 enhancements!

I hope this part of the What’s New series gives you a better understanding of the new features and functions of SOLIDWORKS 2023. Please check back to the CATI Blog as the CATI Application Engineers will continue to break down many of the new items in SOLIDWORKS 2023. All these articles will be stored in the category of “SOLIDWORKS What’s New.” 

Nick Pusateri

Senior Application Engineer Specialist, Simulation

Computer Aided Technology 

What is Design Innovation Month? 

DESIGN INNOVATION MONTH 2022 – Live Events, Webinars, Virtual Showroom, Contests 

Design Innovation Month is CATI’s “What’s New in 2023” event for SOLIDWORKS, 3DEXPERIENCE, and 3D Printing & 3D Scanning technology. This year we’re going back to the future to bring you in-person events, live and on-demand webinars, demonstrations, in-depth blog posts, and prizes! Best of all, it’s free of charge! Check the DI Month Hub for all the details and to sign up for your nearest live event.