Graphics Systems SolidNotes

SolidWorks Workgroup PDM: “Yellow” Warning Sign

Suddenly your local view displays a warning icon. What does this indicator mean? Workgroup PDM is letting you know that the document in the vault was modified by another user and this document should not be checked in. This warning is initiated when two users “open” the same document. Remember Workgroup PDM will not allow two users to “check-out” the same document.

For example, let’s say my co-worker Matt and I are using Workgroup PDM. I find a part that is located in the vault. It is also in my working directory and I release ownership. I open the part file and save it in SolidWorks. When I look at my local view I notice a green up arrow icon next to the part. Matt opens the same part file from his computer, saves the part in SolidWorks, and he also notices a green up arrow icon in his local view. Matt then "checks-in" the part to the vault as the next revision. I will now see from my local view a yellow warning icon.

On The Road To Solidworks World 2010

The journey began with a short flight from Milwaukee to Minneapolis. Our connecting flight to Anaheim is delayed an hour so I can take a few moments to start blogging about SWW 2010.

We flew up with the crew from DCI Marketing, and are now meeting compatriots from our Oakbrook Terrace office and the regional SolidWorks office. It's so cool when we fly out to SWW and folks from around the world meet along the way.

I just got a call from our own Paul Niedfeldt, letting me know how much fun he had being a judge at the Milwaukee FIRST competition today. We saw Dean Kaymen at a precious SWW and a few of us got interested. Look for a more in-depth blog from Paul in the future regarding FIRST.

I'll be blogging a few more times over the next few days, so stay tuned!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Free FEA Weldments seminar

I'm not one to be self-aggrandizing but I would like you to consider joining me February 9th, 10th, or the 11th for a FREE seminar on how to leverage structural FEA for sizing fillet welds.  Graphics Systems and Sim3 will be hosting these three, free, half-day events at our offices in Oakbrook Terrace (Illinois), Milwaukee/Menomonee Falls, and Green Bay, Wisconsin.  You can register on-line at http://www.gxsc.com/events_weldments_analysis_seminar.html and we'll be posting videos on our YuoTube channel sometime afterwards.

If you're wondering who should attend this, I'm catering it towards the engineer who may have an idea of and even a little FEA experience and who designs welded structures.  But even if you don't have any exposure to FEA, the first 1/3 of the seminar will swim through some of the basics to aid in your understanding.  We'll then look at something called the "throat shear" method of weld sizing, and we'll cap the morning off with some of the advanced tools SolidWorks has packed in to their Simulation Professional package.  Even if your company hasn't considered looking at FEA but you do weldments, you should attend this free event.  You may see that you can save time and cost up-front before that steel gets flamed and welded.

Thanks.

(now, that wasn't too self-aggrandizing... was it?)

"Tired" of looking for your S-N curves in SolidWorks Simulation 2010?

If you've come to rely on SolidWorks Simulation Fatigue studies, you might at first be frustrated with not finding the material's S-N curve in 2010.  Do not fret: your curve data is still available and SolidWorks has added a new report plot available for users of Simulation Professional.

Previously, in SolidWorks Simulation 2009, the material's S-N curve was located with the editing of the material itself.  View this photo 

However, in 2010 you'll not see the familar Fatigue Curve tab within the material properties. View this photo  Instead, when you either open an existing Fatigue study from a previous release or start a new Fatigue study, a new item will be in the Study tree.  A material folder where, upon right-clicking and editing, your S-N curve data tab! View this photo  To summarize, in order to modify or create new S-N curves for your materials you must have a fatigue study started or have one existing from a previous release.

Does this seem like alot of work?  It is not, really.  But just to make things easier on us, the folks at SolidWorks have added a new reporting tool within Static studies.  Since a static study is needed as a precursor to a fatigue study, a new Fatigue Check Plot is available within the static study. Right-click the Results folder of your freshly completed static study. View this photo 

The Property Manager of this new plot type (View this photo) allows you to change the loading type, the strength factors, and add scaling.  That is easy and efficient.  Two things this engineer appreciates.

Check out the other new features within SolidWorks Simulation!  Contact us with your questions or leave comments below.
 
 
 
 

VALVE DESIGN AND TORQUE CALCULATIONS USING SOLIDWORKS FLOW SIMULATION

In this article, we are going to determine Dynamic Torque generated by Water at various position of the Valve. The given value geometry is checked in SolidWorks and previewed using SolidWorks Flow Simulation "Check Geometry Options". There were no penetration/interferences in this simplified model.

Flow  Analysis - Operating Conditions:

Pressure and Velocity Plots at 23 degree open Condition:

Pressure and Velocity Plots at 67 degree open Condition:

Pressure and Velocity at Full open Condition:

 

 

 Summary of Results:

SolidWorks Configuration	Y-Component of Torque (lbf-in)	Comments
23 degree open	58254.36127	Total cells=346747, Results converged
67 degree open	3844.252027	Total cells=261074, Results converged
Full open	-0.699287861	Total cells=274276, Results converged

Conclusions & Advantages of using SolidWorks Flow Simulation :

• The single design environment of SolidWorks enables users to set-up simulations quicker, and easily correlate design changes with analysis results.
• SolidWorks has simplified the entire analysis workflow. With SolidWorks’ streamlined interface, Flow Wizard, and in-depth help, novice users are able to set up complex Analysis studies and easily interpret the results.
• Meshing is a far simpler automated process for upfront design. If the prospect has complex geometry, SolidWorks Flow will prove far more reliable in creating the mesh.
• SolidWorks Flow Simulation yields highly accurate results. SolidWorks Flow also has state of the    art technology for modeling turbulence and thin wall geometry.
   
  

MOTION..........LIKE NEVER BEFORE !!

My previous article did give you some insights about importing motion loads in Simulation 2009. Time and again solidworks Simulation has proved that its trying to make our life easy every year with new enhancements. In 2010, it has now added the Simulation Setup inside motion. Once you are all set with your required mechanism in Motion, all you need to do is go to the Simulation Setup and it will guide you through the process. You can specify the mesh density, time steps and material property during the simulation setup process.

As we click on “Calculate” to compute for our motion study, we need to go with “Calculate Simulation Study” and then obtain Stress, Factor of Safety and Displacement plots. The cool feature is that as you would visualize any normal motion study, you can also view the  Simulation plots changing in real time. It again depends on the time step that you specify during the Simulation Setup within the Motion Study.

All the above mentioned was motion analysis with respect to time.  Solidworks Simulation team has also come up with “Event based Motion” as a part of Simulation Professional in 2010 version. This could be easily explained from the fact that one event triggers another event in a sequence. This type of motion analysis is very important when we are unaware of any time factors in the motion study.

Bypass Your Graphics Card

If you have display glitches or similar issues in SolidWorks that you suspect may be due to an old driver or unsupported graphics card, there is a pretty simple way to get some good confirmation. It's a setting inside of SolidWorks iteself called "Use Software OpenGL."

Where do you find it? Tools > Options > System > Performance. You will find a setting to turn on Software OpenGL -- it's a check box. Important: You can only set this option when you are in SolidWorks but you have no documents open. Since you're changing how the graphics are being dealt with, if you have documents open in SolidWorks you can't very well make the switch and hence the option checkbox will be grayed out.

Once you set this to "on", you are telling SolidWorks not to use the graphics card for OpenGL functions -- you're essentially bypassing the card. It's not as fast to work in this mode, but if you have an old graphics card, or one that isn't supported, it might be better to work this way. If you're using this setting as part of the troubleshooting process, you'll know that your problem is graphics card or driver related and can proceed accordingly.

BTW, in case you're wondering, we currently recommend the nVidia Quadro FX580 as our baseline graphics card for SolidWorks users.

EPDM 2010: Toolbox is in the Vault !

The Toolbox source data, including the database, is now all kept inside the EPDM vault. You can have a single source for your Toolbox data that can be replicated to multiple sites.

EPDM for 2010 automatically checks the source files out when an administrator makes changes. The Enterprise Toolbox Administrator gives you the option to set user permissions for when accessing the source files. It will also let you set the path of the source file root folder.

The Toolbox files are now cached locally automatically.  If a user tries to clear their cache that contains Toolbox components, a dialog appears asking if they would like to remove the Toolbox files.

EPDM for 2010 has another option to search sub folders under the Toolbox root folder. Now when new assemblies are migrated into the vault or assemblies that were referencing Toolbox files outside the vault Enterprise Search can find their references.

Finally, you are given the option in EPDM 2010 to either use the copied part or create configuration option.  In previous releases only the create configuration option was supported.

SolidWorks 2010 Movie Trailer Spoofs! Wayne's World, James Bond, Office Space, Terminator

If you attended our SolidWorks 2010 Midwest Premiere events this year, you were one of the over 400 lucky SolidWorks users to see our SolidWorks "movie trailers."   These spoofs, created by our very own marketing group, really added to the "movie" theme of our events and were very well received by the audience. I think my favorite one is the James Bond spoof on 3DVIA Composer. 

Check them out and comment on your favorite one!

SolidWorks 2010 Features - 3D CAD - Wayne's World Spoof

3DVIA Composer - Product Documentation - James Bond Spoof

Enterprise PDM - Product Data Management - Office Space Spoof

Simulation (FEA) - Product Analysis- Terminator 2 Spoof

How to create a password protected PDF for free

There are times when I want to email a document to a vendor or a customer a PDF but I want to make sure that, in the off chance that it falls into the wrong hands, it cannot be opened.  This functionality is normally reserved for Adobe Acrobat Professional.  However, I found that you can use an open source software to do the same thing.

The software is called PDF Creator.  I've been personally using this for years and it works well.  Simply install it and create the PDF print driver.  Then, you have the option to select the PDF options and are able to set passwords for anyone who wants to view or edit the document prior to creating the PDF.  It also helps you protect intellectual property by disallowing users from copying information from the PDF.  Below is a screenshot from their web page.

Enjoy and I hope that we'll have a warm winter!