Getting Started with Simulation Tutorials in SolidWorks Premium

A recent sales promotion has helped many new customers obtain a license of SolidWorks Premium, which includes lots of great Add-in functionality beyond SolidWorks Standard and SolidWorks Professional. Perhaps the most popular is SolidWorks Simulation, which provides full finite element analysis (FEA) capabilities for linear static (“stress/strain”) simulation. Also, those of you on a “floating” Network License may have access to a Simulation license. But many of you might not know how or where to get started with Simulation.
Where are the SolidWorks Tutorials? Where is the Help?
Well, Step 0 is you need to make sure SolidWorks Premium is installed! If it is not, then you won’t be able to do Step 1. If you need help installing (or modifying your current installation), then contact your CAD Administrator, or CAPINC customers on subscription can of course contact our Technical Support staff.
Step 1:  Turn on the “SolidWorks Simulation” Add-in. Launch SolidWorks and navigate to the Tools > Add-Ins… menu:


Check the left-hand box to turn on Simulation in this session. Checking the right-hand box will turn it on in every session from now on, which if you’re using a Network License may anger your coworkers who might want access to the license that you’ll keep grabbing!

Step 2: Open a Part or Assembly file. You will not see any Simulation user interface (icons or toolbars) unless a model file is open. It can be a new empty file, as long as you have one open.




Step 3: Browse the pull-down menus (usually hidden beneath the SolidWorks logo) to Simulation > Help > Tutorials. You could also browse instead to Help > SolidWorks Simulation > Tutorials. As long as the Add-In is on, and a model file is open, you will be able to see both of these menu options.


(You’ll also see in this sub-menu the link to the Help Topics, as well as a link to Verification Problems and NAFEMS Benchmarks. The Verification Problems and Benchmarks provide examples where you can validate Simulation results against theory to prove to yourself and others what we have known for years: Our solvers are excellent and accurate.)
I recommend getting started with the Tutorials. Similar to SolidWorks CAD Tutorials, they divide the screen into two regions and give you easy click-by-click instructions for opening files and going through some steps to acquaint yourself with basic Simulation functionality. SolidWorks Premium includes Simulation Statics. Incidentally, SolidWorks Premium also includes Motion Simulation, but that’s for another post on another day…


After completing a few Tutorials, your next step is to try some of your own simple examples. Then if you decide you want to start using Simulation for your design work, you should attend a Simulation course at CAPINC. We offer a 3-day class for designers to become productive with SolidWorks Simulation  Tutorial . We begin with the essentials of FEA and end with the nonlinearities of large-displacement solutions! (It sounds complicated, but it’s just a check-box option!) The 3rd day of class covers the additional study types available with Simulation Professional (Thermal, Frequency, Buckling, Fatigue, and Drop Test).

By default, SolidWorks Simulation does not open when SolidWorks does. We can change this by going to Tools > Add-Ins, shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. How to start Simulation SolidWorks .

The Add-Ins window, replicated in Figure 6, pops up. Check the box to the left of “SolidWorks Simulation” to enable Simulation in this instance of SolidWorks. If you want Simulation to be enabled every time you start SolidWorks, check the box to the right of “SolidWorks Simulation” as well. If this is your first time using Simulation, you may be asked to agree to an end-user license agreement.

Defining the material For SolidWorks Simulation Tutorials

SolidWorks is, first and foremost, a 3-D modeling tool. Look in the tutorials folder for a SolidWorks model named “glass.SLDPRT”. When you open it, it should show a wine glass, as in Figure 1. This is the model we are going to study in this tutorial. Save a copy to your Charlie account.

If you wish to practice your modeling, part of a technical drawing of this wine glass is included in Appendix A. Units are in millimeters. This should be enough information to draw your own.

To use the model of the glass in Simulation, we must specify the material that the model is made of. Can you guess what material we want the model to be? That’s right, glass! You can specify a material in the Feature Manager design tree on the left-side panel. There should be an icon named “Material <not specified>,” as in Figure 2. Right-click this and choose “Edit material” to be brought to the Materials window, shown in Figure 3. Glass is found in the folder SolidWorks Materials > Other Non-metals. Click “Glass,” then click “Apply” and “Close.” Your model should change from opaque grey to transparent grey, as in Figure 4.

 Figure 2. How to change a model's material in SolidWorks Simulation



Figure 3. Materials window in SolidWorks Simulation.

Figure 4. The glass, now shown as glass in SolidWorks Simulation Tutorial.

This Tutorial of Conditions in SolidWorks Simulation

Some common reasons for error include making invalid assumptions, setting incorrect boundary conditions, setting incorrect material properties, and general numerical errors. As an example, let’s consider the stress analysis of a typical model. One can assume a linear stress-strain relationship before the yield strength of the material is reached. The model produces incorrect results as stress or strain increase to the point of nonlinearity on the stress-strain curve.

Setting appropriate boundary conditions SolidWorks Simulation  can be more difficult than one might first expect, and it is easy to overlook boundaries (such as the initial temperature of an object). This can result in nonsensical default values being used for the simulation. Obtaining accurate physical parameters for your materials can also be difficult, especially if you are using nonstandard or unusual materials.

FEA inherently discretizes the object being studied. The number of elements used presents a tradeoff between runtime and accuracy.

(Conditions in SolidWorks Simulation)

Before you trust your FEA results, you should plan for a significant validation process. If possible, the best place to begin the validation process is with a simple model that can be solved analytically. Check that the FEA simulation produces comparable results. For example, before looking at bending in an array of bolted-together I-beams, compare the FEA results for bending in a single I-beam to analytical results. Be sure you are using the appropriate material parameters. Another important model validation technique is to compare the FEA results to an actual physical prototype using simple stimulus, such as an impulse. Beware of making claims about the FEA model results that you cannot independently support with other analysis or measurement.

Objectives Of SolidWorks Simulation

By completing this tutorial, you will learn to conduct finite-element analysis (FEA) tests on SolidWorks models using the Simulation add-on.

Introduction SolidWorks Simulation

Finite-element analysis (FEA) is useful in predicting a model’s response to various influences such as forces, torques, periodic excitations, and heat. FEA is used to analyze large or complicated models where analytical solutions are not possible. FEA software breaks the model into thousands of small tetrahedral elements and solves numerically for each one individually.

Some of the leading commercial FEA tools include COMSOL, Ansys, and SolidWorks Simulation. This tutorial covers SolidWorks Simulation because it is a comfortable environment for those who already know 3D modeling with SolidWorks. SolidWorks Simulation is primarily applicable to mechanical and thermal models. COMSOL specializes in multiphysics problems involving interaction between mechanical, thermal, and electrical behavior. Ansys also addresses mechanical and thermal simulations and has advanced capabilities required in certain fields.

This tutorial will cover three of the simulation studies available in SolidWorks Simulation:

1. Static analysis, for Identifying stresses caused by static loading
2. Frequency analysis, for identifying resonant frequencies and associated mode shapes
3. Thermal analysis, for identifying heat flow through a model

Mastering these three gives you the tools and experience necessary to make use of any of the remaining simulation studies. We will use the same model, a wine glass, for each study.

Before you begin SolidWorks Simulation

On two occasions I have been asked, “Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?”...I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
                                        Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, 1864

Since the very beginning of computing, users have been plagued by bad outputs as a result of bad inputs. FEA is particularly prone to such problems, generating pretty pictures that often have no bearing on reality. As a general rule, if you don’t know what to expect, the results you get are probably incorrect and certainly unusable.