- [Teacher] In this video,
I'm going to be covering the basic
workflow for running a simulation
inside of SOLIDWORKS.
Now in this course, we're using
Simulation Express, however,
this basic workflow will work
for just about any type of simulation
you're going to be using whether
it's Simulation Express or the full version
of SOLIDWORKS simulation.
You're just going to have a few more options
with the latter.
Okay, first things first, let's go
over here to the Evaluate tab,
click on that one and come over here
to Simulation Express Analysis Wizard.
You also have the option up here
under Tools, under Express Products,
Simulation Express, either one.
Click on either one of those,
and notice it comes up with a little
wizard over here on the right hand side
that's going to be guiding you through
the different options, constraints
and forces to apply your model
to get the results you're looking for.
Okay, you can see here over on the
left hand side, I already have
some of those things applied to this model.
So, starting from the top and working down,
you can see here is my simulation,
and notice it's got an error because
we still need to run it.
We've made a few changes to the model.
Now, the next thing is the material.
So I've already assigned a cast alloy steel.
So you definitely need to assign a material
so the software knows how to solve
for this correctly.
Then below that you can see we've got
a couple of different fixtures.
You can see here I'm placing a fixture
on these front surfaces here
that happen to be going right around
where these bolts are,
kind of like what you'd see with like
a washer and a bolt.
Now, I've made a modification
to this part using the analysis preparation
and making a split line to break
this face up because I didn't want to
apply a fixture across that entire surface.
I wanted to only apply it kind of
right below where those washers might be
so you get a little bit more accurate results.
Now, again, we're in Simulation Express
and there's a lot of limitations
in this product.
It's a quick and dirty analysis tool.
It's not perfect by any means.
So, we are going to be doing a few things
here as work arounds to get to
a little bit better values that we
might not get otherwise.
The next thing here I have a fixture
on the back surface here.
Saying this whole surface here is bonded,
and that's really not true either right,
because what's happening is when
we bolt this to a wall or something like that,
you're compressing the material below
where the washers would be.
The rest of it's not glued or bonded.
It's really just being pressed
up against the wall.
So you might get some flexing
and stuff like that.
And we're also not taking into account
the wall either which is providing
some force if we start flexing
this bracket that's going to support it from the back side.
So you do have to understand,
there's a lot of assumptions made
in analysis, and if you make good assumptions,
you can generally get pretty good results.
If you make bad assumptions,
your results are just not going
to be very accurate.
So definitely think through the process,
and I'm going to go ahead and show you
a few workarounds so you can get
a little bit better results.
Okay, moving on, you can see here,
the two fixtures and then down here
is the external load.
So you can see here I've chosen this
inside surface here as my mounting
location for something, and I'm going to
be placing about a thousand pound
force facing straight down into that hole.
So it's a tapered hole, and that's where
I'm going to be mounting something into.
And you can see there below that,
I have some results, but they haven't been run yet.
So let's go ahead and run those.
So if I go over here to the right hand side,
you can see I have to go and just
click on Next.
And because I've already applied a fixture,
we'd normally apply a fixture right here,
but I've already done that.
So let's go ahead and just click on Next.
Apply a Force or a pressure,
we've already done that.
Let's go ahead and click on Next.
We've already applied our cast alloy steel
so again, I can click on Next,
and as we go through this course,
these are all the things I'm
going to be showing you how to do correctly.
The next thing is it's ready to run.
So let's go ahead and say Run Simulation,
and it's going to go ahead and calculate
what these forces are, figure out
what's going on behind the scenes,
and it's going to give us a little video
here showing, hey, this is what we're
expecting to see, yes or no, is kind of the question.
And we have to answer it.
So it says yes, this is what I'm expecting
or no, it's not,
and I've applied something wrong.
But, in this case, yes, it does look good.
So I say click on Yes, continue.
All right, and now it's going to give us some data.
It's saying hey, we've got a factor
of safety of 2.1 basically.
Saying that's pretty good,
and I can show where the stressors are going to be.
I can show the displacement.
I can show where the factor of safety is,
different places,
and I can just get some information here.
I can change these values and relook at the model.
And see where the factor of safety
is being compromised and things of that nature.
So when you think about analysis,
this is where that really plays in
is figuring out hey, where's this going to fail,
where can I maybe add material,
remove material or just making sure
that the design you do have is not going to
fail out in the field,
and that's really the most important thing.
But those are the basic steps
for generating an analysis inside of Simulation Express.
Once you've gone through all these
things here, you have the option
of saving out the results as a report
or a couple things like that.
Just go ahead and click on Done.
Now I have the option to generate a report.
I can generate an e-drawing file.
I can click on Next, and actually
optimize a design inside of Simulation Express,
but again, this video here is just
to give you a quick overview of the
steps and the things we're going to be learning
in this course.