TriMech Blog

“This is how we’ve always done it.”

Your current process might have helped define your success years ago, but is it honestly still relevant in today’s global and more technology-empowered competitive landscape? How much time and effort could you save by taking a fresh look at something as simple as communication between your product development teams? A lot, as it turns out!

I have been a SOLIDWORKS user for about six years, using it mostly for CAD, but sometimes for running my designs through structural simulation analysis. The CAD software I used prior to SOLIDWORKS was slower and this process took extra time to set up. I had to export and import .STEP files between different software, and even though it worked in the end, it seemed like running simulations took forever. My experience since changing to SOLIDWORKS Simulation has been very different. In this blog article, I show you how I used SOLIDWORKS Simulation to run a simple static study.

SimulationXpress is a built-in, first-pass design verification tool created to quickly and easily put a single-body part through a structural study in SOLIDWORKS. This great tool is included with every license of SOLIDWORKS, after an easy activation and allows the user to do simple stress analysis simulation studies without the need to purchase an additional SOLIDWORKS Simulation package. In this blog post, we take a look at the top five features that make SOLIDWORKS SimulationXpress the tool you should be using with any part that you design.

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.