TriMech Blog

So many improvements in SOLIDWORKS 2020, so little time! With the vast amount of upgrades and additions they make each year, it can be overwhelming trying to sift through them all, and often, useful tools and changes are missed. To ensure you are getting the most of your software, we are providing twelve on-demand webinars full of demonstrations, updates, explanations and explorations of SOLIDWORKS. 

It’s STEM Day! In case you are new to this concept, STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The purpose of STEM is to provide young students become familiar with new technologies available and the challenges they pose for the future. Students in STEM classrooms take time to cover significant topics and fun activities in these fields, present ongoing projects or just discuss the importance of these areas in today’s world. In honor of National STEM Day, I want to share a topic that has always been interesting to me, flying. In this blog, I will cover some of the physics and mechanics involved in making things fly and how they can be tested using SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD.

SOLIDWORKS Simulation Premium enables you to virtually test real-life scenarios more accurately. It provides you with a wide variety of material models for nonlinear analyses. Elastomers such as rubber, neoprene etc. are materials that go through large deformation very rapidly with relatively a low value of stress or applied load. In this article, we go over the different hyper elasticity material models available in SOLIDWORKS Simulation and how to use them to work with these types of materials. 

When you are designing a product, it is important to accurately analyze the varied temperatures to ensure the stability of your model. Thermal stress analysis refers to a static analysis that measures the strains, stresses and deformations that occur with changes in temperature. SOLIDWORKS Simulation enables you to test multiple conditions from static and dynamic response to heat transfer. In this blog article, we use a stainless-steel instant pot to illustrate how to properly utilize the thermal stress analysis feature for improved temperature resistance.

In every major release of SOLIDWORKS you will find hundreds of enhancements that will help boost your productivity and performance. Some of these performance gains happen behind the scenes without you even noticing, while others may require you know a trick or two to take full advantage of their capabilities. Some of the most talked-about performance enhancements came in 2013 and 2017 with the addition of network solver capabilities for PhotoView 360 and SOLIDWORKS Simulation respectively. In this blog post, we show you a great trick to take full advantage of these performance solver engines.

Sink Marks appear during the cooling process with injection molding and can be easily identified using SOLIDWORKS Plastics. Detecting them during the design phase saves time and money by avoiding manufacturing defects. Let's dive in to the ways in which you can utilize this software to easily spot the errors that cause these marks.

A day without using plastic parts is unimaginable. From consumer electronics to children’s toys, kitchen gadgets and medical devices, the use of components made from plastic materials has steadily increased. The majority of these plastics parts are produced through injection molding, the process of injecting liquefied plastic materials into a mold, cooling or solidification of the material and ejection of the molded part.  

Building assemblies and getting them to move is one of the most satisfying aspects of designing in a CAD environment. After designing all those parts we can assemble them and start to see just how they will act and react before the first part is ever manufactured. Analysis of movement gives us insights we otherwise would not have access to without producing a part or prototype. Are parts colliding? Do they fit together as intended? Can it be assembled and does its assembly require special tools? How much space near our machine is required for it to perform its task? The list of questions goes on. In this blog article, we will go over how to use tools within SOLIDWORKS to virtually test robotic movement without any physical mock-ups.

You’re working away in SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation when you run into this message, “Fluid volume recognition has failed because the model currently is not watertight.” Ugh. It can really put a cramp in your workflow. Even the tiniest holes keep SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation from detecting your fluid region making it impossible to run a study. Luckily, you don’t have to scrap your work and start over. Since SOLIDWORKS 2013, there’s a tool that makes it extremely easy to locate these frustrating gaps and holes in internal studies. It’s called Leak Tracking and it shows you exactly where the problem areas are so you can finish setting up your model for an internal flow study.

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.