Page 694 - 02. Subyek Computer Aided Design - Beginner’s Guide to SOLIDWORKS 2019- Level 1 by Alejandro Reyes

Analysis: SimulationXpress

Background: Why Analysis?

Simulation is a very important tool in engineering. Computers and software

have come a long way since the early analysis tools first became available, and

modern tools have made simulation a lot easier to use, faster, more accurate and

more accessible than ever, enabling designers and engineers to check their

design, make sure it's safe, understand how it will deform, if it will fail and under

what circumstances, or how it will perform in any given environment (temperature,

pressure, vibrations, etc.).

The biggest advantage, by far, when analyzing a design is that we will have

a safe design, and at the same time, save money by making decisions as to what

materials to use, component sizes, features and even appearance early in the

design process, when it is still all in "paper' (maybe a more appropriate term now

would be 'in Bytes'©) and cheaper to modify. As the product development process

advances beyond the design stage, making design changes to a product is

increasingly more expensive as we approach the manufacturing stage.

Picture it this way: Imagine we design the newest must-have gadget and it

looks really nice. We make molds, tooling, order parts, and set up an assembly

line. Soon our gadget is in the stores, and a month later we start receiving customer

complaints: when a button is pressed hard, the battery cover falls off. Then, after

we know we have a problem, we run an analysis and find out that we should have

had a thicker this or that, with a widget in between the thingamajig and the

thingamabob, and those changes would solve the problem. Now, all we need to

do is to change the design, the tooling, the assembly line, marketing, and above

all, convince every customer that it is fixed. At this point, our customers' perception

of our company and credibility are destroyed. This is usually the most expensive

part. It's easy to see why making analysis of our products early in the design

process will help us design better products and save money and resources.

With that said, it must also be noted that just because we made a simulation

does not guarantee that our designs will be safe or successful, as there are many

factors involved. Reasons for product failure include using the product beyond its

designed capacity, abuse, material imperfections, fabrication processes and things

and circumstances we could have never thought of. This is where the designer

needs to consider every possible scenario, and of course, simulate it as realistically

as possible with the correct analysis tools.

SOLIDWORKS includes a basic structural analysis package called

"SimulationXpress." As its name implies, it has limited functionality that allows

only certain scenarios to be analyzed. To understand what these limitations are,

first we need to learn a little about how analysis works. A general overview of the

inner workings of analysis is as follows:

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