TriMech Blog

The Hyatt Regency Walkway collapse was an event that changed engineering forever. This example serves as a lesson to many about double-checking your work. We should always use every tool available to us to make sure our designs are safe and that they perform how we expect. I wonder what the engineers on this project could’ve done if they had a simple tool to use that could have raised a red flag after just a few minutes of set up.

SOLIDWORKS Simulation is one of the leading design analysis tools that brings the power of simulation into the SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD environment, to conduct design validation early in the design process. Ease of use and tight integration within CAD enables designers and engineers to run different types of simulation from linear static to nonlinear static to dynamic analyses. However, even with its extensive capabilities, there are situations where SOLIDWORKS Simulation needs a little extra help. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at one of these situations, running a snap fit analysis and will walk through assisting SOLIDWORKS Simulation with Simulia Structural Simulation Engineer (SSE).

In any simulation project, setting up the correct boundary condition and interpreting the results are the most challenging phases, regardless of the simulation software being used. Certain tools and display settings available within SOLIDWORKS Simulation result plots can help you during the simulation result interpretation process. The stress hot spot diagnostic tool, available for linear static studies using solid and shell elements, can be used to detect regions of the model where stress singularities exist, for example, sharp edges or corners or the location of fixtures.

It is important to design products that are strong yet light in weight while resisting damage against impact or unanticipated shocks and vibration. The static analysis assumes that loads are constant or applied very slowly, ignoring the effects of inertial and damping forces. For many practical cases, loads are not applied slowly. In fact, they change with time or frequency. To simulate such conditions, a dynamic analysis is required.

At TriMech, our engineers are always excited about the technologies that we offer our clients. From the latest in CAD changes to the newest advancements in additive manufacturing, our goal is to have the best technical staff available. One of the ways that we encourage their advancement is by embracing the use of technologies for personal experiences and professional development.

During this multi-part video series, we are going to highlight one of our Senior Application Engineers, Ryan Zeck. Ryan has been racing since before he was nine years old and has always had a passion for going fast! So for this project we’ve given Ryan access to TriMech’s entire product portfolio to see how we can make his car go even faster. 

This week's Product Story showcases ADMET and their use of SOLIDWORKS and SIMULIA Structural Simulation Engineer (SSE).

Over the past 25 years, ADMET has helped businesses around the world, across a wide spectrum of industries, solve their materials testing challenges. 

It is becoming increasingly important for innovative companies to accelerate new product time to market without compromising quality. In order to do this, teams need to easily perform more complex simulations that are reliable, have easy access to validation tools for quick evaluation of designs and be able to share all these results and ideas with other teams. To meet these demands, Dassault Systèmes has introduced SIMULIA Structural Simulation Engineer (SSE).

3D printing a functional prototype is one of the most critical steps in the development of any product or solution. It allows for testing, hands-on fit and finish testing and the ability to make design iterations on the fly before the final product is made. It allows for problems and defects to be found quickly, saving you both time and money. Plus, prototyping can be done in 5 easy steps.

In part one of this series, we evaluated how heat accumulation on a circuit board can lead to components shorting out and causing product performance issues. In this follow-up article and video, we're going to explore another important consideration when designing connected devices - battery life.

From the latest smartphone release to the driving range in electric vehicles, battery efficiency and performance is often a deciding factor in consumer purchasing decisions.

“We have decided to halt production and sales of the [Modern Electronic Device] in order to consider our consumers’ safety first and foremost.”-Samsung.

After making this statement, Samsung was forced to recall 2.5 million devices already shipped or in consumers' hands. That is a position no company wants to be in, but the reality is that more and more companies, in order to compete, must keep up with the technological advances. Businesses and consumers are demanding more from the electronic devices they purchase.

In this two-part video series, we’ll demonstrate how simple validation tests can ensure your design is handling the thermal load properly and if not, how to make the necessary changes to dissipate heat and avoid critical temperatures, field failures and thermal runaway. 

When I saw an article request come across for the top five reasons to use the cloud for 3D CAD, I snagged it before it could be distributed. This is something that has always fascinated me and I’m often wondering why the design world, the world in which I live, has been so slow to adopt it. I use Netsuite, Office 365, Gmail, Amazon, Netflix, Pokémon Go and Fortnite almost daily but anytime I want to design, I’m sitting behind my laptop working locally. Here are my personal top five, of many, reasons to move the design to the cloud.

We introduced you to Altair Inspire Form and walked you through some of the steps of what you can do with the software in a previous blog. But, surprise! That's not all it's capable of! Find out how to load, prepare and set up models to perform formability, flatten and fit blank and nest blank tests.