SolidWorks World 2010 : Making sense of Pretty Pictures ?

 
  
This year SolidWorks World user conference will be held in Anaheim, CA. Every year thousands of users from across the globe assemble to showcase their skills, pick a few tricks and get a bearing on next wave of technology. Computer Aided Technology has been an active participant since inception of SolidWorks World. This year I will be presenting a topic "Making Sense of Pretty Pictures in SolidWorks Simulation".

So how did I decide on the topic: Listening to questions on support and interacting with customers in training sessions, it became obvious there was a dire need to understand outputs from SolidWorks Simulation.  Any Simulation walks through three primary stages; defining material, understanding boundary conditions and finally co-relating results to design improvements. Many a times, the last step could get confusing and may lead to user spending tons of time mulling over charts and pictures. This would be counterproductive, thus defeating the very goal of simulation : " Reduce Design Cycle time".

In this presentation, I walk through strategies to understand results, steps taken to catch errors early and finally unwrap misnomers generated about simulation. Attendees will have a deeper understanding of concepts, and will walk away with rules to make every simulation successful.

When : Wednesday, Feb 3rd

Where : Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Room 212 A

Time : 1.30 pm - 2.30 pm

Rajat Trehan

Product Manager - Design Validation

Computer Aided Technology Inc.

SolidWorks World DriveWorksXpress and 3DVIA Composer HOTD's

Sign up now for some hands-on experience with DriveWorksXpress and 3DVIA Composer at SolidWorks World!!! 

DriveWorksXpress is the easy to use, free, design automation tool in every seat of SolidWorks.  3DVIA Composer allows user to quickly and easily create images and interactive content directly from their CAD Data.

The sessions will give you some practical skills that will show you what both DriveWorksXpress and 3DVIA Composer can do.

The sessions are back to back on Tuesday afternoon.

SolidWorks World's Coming (What does Beaker have in store for us?)

OK, I'm getting excited now. [Or stressed]  SolidWorks World is around the corner and my team has about 8 separate presentations that we are giving.  The two that I am working on are "Tackeling Administrative Images" and "Modeling Methods and Environment Configuration for Optimal Performance".  I am not ready for either yet but I'm working hard to get there.

The later is the real challenge.  The goal of this presentation is to give the audience an idea of not only what changes you can make with environment and modeling methods to improve performance but also, what kind of benefit can be expected from each change.  It turns out that it is not a trivial task.

Josh Altergott and I developed a test that would run a specific "Large" assembly through several tasks.  We made a macro that would take our specific model through this series of tasks automatically to take human delay out of the picture.  The macro was not easy for us to develop, niether of us is a programer, but we got through it with help from our peers and from the API support group at SolidWorks.  We then determined 31 different adjustments that we wanted to make and compare to determine what adjustments give us the biggest bang for our effort and which ones are either worthless or counter productive.

Our base line system:

• SolidWorks 2010 SP1  
  
• SolidWorks system settings set to defaults except -
  
  
  
  • Large assembly mode is turned off
    
  • Lightweight mode is turned off
    
  • All addins are turned off
  
  
  
  
• Windows 7 32bit
  
• OS system settings all set to defaults
  
• Dell T3400 Workstation
  
• NVidia Quadro Fx 1700 Graphics card
  
• 2 1TB storage Hard Drives 7200rpm for model storage
  
• 2 64GB Solidstate SATA Drive for model storage
  
• 1 80GB Hard Drive to store files not used directly in testing
  
• 1 1TB Hard Drive stores both the 32bit and 64bit OSs (The workstation is dual booting)
  
• Our model is real world from a customer as they modeled it (Minor changes were made to insure that the macro ran through without pauses or freezes)
  
  
  
  • 4368 components 
    
  • 765 Unique parts 
    
  • 215 Unique sub-assemblies
    
  • Max Depth 7
    
  • 70 Top level components
    
  • Resolved components 4018
    
  • 170 top level mates 
  
  
  
  

The workstation we built has been christened "Beaker" (I really do like the muppets) and we are abusing the poor guy to no end.  31 separate senerios each run through the macro 3 times (after reboot, after login, after SolidWorks restarts).  93 separate test runs each averaging 40 minutes.  So, not counting reruns, 62 continuous hours of automated high speed operation.  We are hoping he survives.

So what have we learned so far?  Here are a couple of things:

1. Working on a network drive will kill you.
   
2. I tried running a test with 32bit and 2GB of RAM It just blew-up.
   
3. Their is really no point in attempting Large Assembly Modeling with anything other than a 64bit Workstation with 8 GB or more of RAM.

I will be posting some of our findings as we get closer to the presentation date.

If you are going to SolidWorks World come see this presentation at 4:30 on Monday.  If not, as always, we will make all of the presentations done by CATI Techs available on our website.  And check back here to see more as well.

Adrian Fanjoy

In Search of a Prius That Runs on Cooking Oil, or Product Documentation Contributes to the Smart Grid

If you root around the CAD websites these days, everyone seems to be looking to add a check to the "green" box.  SolidWorks, for example, recently rolled out "Sustainability Express" in all licenses of SolidWorks. This video highlights some functionality of the SolidWorks Sustainability Suite.

As the child of a Beatnik (just a bit too old to be a hippy), I find it very satisfying to find companies that are trying to do the right thing for the environment.  I am proud to say that we recently took part in just such a project.

My customer produces complex equipment used to power our world.  They recently developed a product that was widely accepted by their customers as an essential component of the Smart Grid and, simply put, sold as soon as they could build them.  And therein, as the Bard would tell us, lies the rub...

This company had sufficient floor space and enough business to triple their manufacturing capacity.  However, this piece of machinery is extremely complex and can only be built by a small number of qualified individuals.  Our customer needs to train its users without sacrificing the time of these valuable, qualified shop floor individuals. 

Recently, this company chose to implement 3DVia as a solution to this issue.  The solution will allow CAD data to be used as a starting point for interactive assembly instructions. These instructions will be delivered to shop floor with a Bill of Material (BOM) and data that describes each part.  Moreover, these instructions will be automatically updated when the BOM/geometry/description changes to alleviate confusion.

The expected outcome of this project is to build more than three times as many units, and increase revenue by 3x on the chosen product line.  If successful, the solution can be scaled up to include any product that they have designed in 3D CAD.

Ken Kesey once said "You're either on the bus or off the bus."  Working together, we are simply building a bigger, more pimped out version of the bus that will house more workers, create lower emissions and decrease our carbon foot print.  And what a long, strange trip it's going to be...

Motion Stress Recovery

Machine Designers have a tough time figuring out reaction generated to applied loading. Using SolidWorks Motion simulation users can calculate loads generated in a component. This involves a two step process, (a) solve motion analysis (b) import loads calculated in motion analysis into structural simulation and then co-relate the two. One of the cool features introduced in Simulation 2010 motion simulation is converging two steps into one.

Once motion analysis is run, users can simply pick a component of interest and tell motion analyzer to calculate reaction load during all frames of motion or pick a specific frame of interest. Obviously, number of frames accounted for, will directly correspond to time taken for calculation.

   

Coolness factor

What's amazing, is users can superimpose parameter of interest (displacement, factor of safety etc.) in a component due to applied motion and animate the results. This shows both the motion as well as reaction generated in the component due to motion in a single interface. So the user understands complete component behavior under motion.  

Rajat Trehan

Product Manager - Design Validation 

Computer Aided Technology Inc.
 
 

Double Click and Nothing!!!! when I try to change references.

 
  Stewy, Chill!!! On the Support line, we have been getting reports of users not being able to double click and browse to a file in the Edit Referenced File Dialog. Yes young Mr Griffin there is a way to fix it. It is actually a new undocumented functionality in SolidWorks 2009 SP 5.0 and SolidWorks 2010 SP 1.0, which went over like a ton of bricks. So, the functionality was for you to hold your Ctrl Key and then double click on the selected file name and then the browse for file dialog would come. Do not worry friend, the user base responded very quickly to this change and SolidWorks will be placing things back to their previous functionality of just double clicking. For a SolidWorks 2010 user you will get this in SP2.0 slated for Q1 release. And for those of you still on SolidWorks 2009 SP 5.0, you will be getting a Hot fix (Yes you heard me, a HOT FIX) shortly there after. Until then child if you are 2009 SP5.0 or SolidWorks 2010 SP1.0 you'll have to hold that control key before you double click on edit reference files, and Stewy...nice bounce around.

Cheers,

Bob McGaughey,CSWP

Regional Technical Manager

Computer Aided Technology

Green Design!

Making sure products designed are environmentally friendly and meet all government regulations is a big part of engineering. Many states are passing laws to make sure companies doing business there are developing sustainable products. e.g. the state of California passed a regulation to make trailers coming into California aerodynamic. The goal is to minimize drag, leading to reduced fuel consumption and thus lower greenhouse gas emissions.

SolidWorks has come out with a new tool called "Sustainability". Users can study environmental  impact material, manufacturing process, and location on design.  SolidWorks Sustainability distills the results into environmental impact factors, such as

Carbon Emissions Carbon dioxide and equivalents, such as carbon monoxide and methane, that are released into atmosphere, resulting in global warming.

Energy Consumed All forms of energy consumed over entire life cycle of product.

Air Acidification Air pollution primarily due to burning of fossil fuels, eventually leading to acid rain.

Water Eutrophication Contamination by fertilizers that travel through rivers to coastal waters, resulting in algae blooms and eventual killing of all sea life in certain coastal regions.

Using Sustainability, users get real time feedback on environmental impact of materials from a dashboard. Also, users can look for a similar material and then compare results.

 

There are two versions of Sustainability

SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress

Handles part documents and is included with every license of SolidWorks for free.

SolidWorks Sustainability

Handles part and assembly files, also supports multiple configurations, and has added environment impact factors.

I believe SolidWorks is keeping ahead of the curve, making sure they are practicing what they preach. Asking designers to think differently and keeping innovation at the forefront.

Rajat Trehan

Product Manager - Design Validation 

Computer Aided Technology Inc.