SOLIDWORKS Solutions for Engineering Team

3D Design

•   Powerful 3D design solution for rapid creation of parts, assemblies, and manufacturing drawings. 
•   Application-specific tools for Sheet metal, Weldments, Surfacing and Mold Tool and Die make it easy to deliver best-in-class designs.
•   Quickly create, validate, communicate and manage the product during development process.
•   Get your products to market faster, reduce manufacturing costs, and improve product quality

Automation

•         Driveworksxpress—Automate your design process, and generate infinite variations of  models using  rule-based design
•   SOLIDWORKS Macros—Automate repetitive  tasks and Streamline design process
•   Hotkeys , Task Scheduler & Built-in Application Programming Interface (API)—Automate specific functions in SOLIDWORKS
•          Links to Microsoft® VBA—Generate custom automation                                                                  using  standard industry automation tools

Validation

• Subject your designs to real-world conditions to raise the quality of your products while you reduce your costs for prototypes and testing.
•   Efficiently improve performance by simulating fluid flow, heat transfer & temperature in working and living environments (HVAC)
•   Predict and avoid manufacturing defects during the earliest stages of plastic parts &  injection mold designs
•   Conduct life cycle assessment (LCA) on parts or assemblies directly

DFM Xpress

• DFMXpress analysis tool validates the manufacturability of parts designed with SOLIDWORKS
•   Quickly identify design areas that might cause fabrication problems or increase production costs
•   Quickly review parts with mill, drill, turning, sheet metal, and injection molding requirements.

 

Comparison of Hand Calculation with SOLIDWORKS Simulation

Hand Calculation:

The figure 1 which shown below is a plate with hole in the middle fixed at one end and in other side load is applied.

Figure 1

Parameters	Plate Module
Length(L)	60 mm
Width(w)	40 mm
Thickness(T)	1mm
Plate area(Ap)	40 mm2
Hole area(Ao)	78.5 mm2
Elastic Modulus(E)	2e+5 N/mm2 (AISI 1020)
Force (F)	200 N

Nominal stress:

σ_nom = F/(w-d)t= 2000/(40-10) = 66.666 N/mm²

Stress concentration:

K_t = σ_max/ σ_nom

σ_max= 2.5 * 66.666 = 159.99 N/mm²

SOLIDWORKS Simulation

Simulation Procedure ü  Cad Geometry ü  Type of Analysis ü  Type of Materials ü  Fixtures ü  Loads ü  Meshing ü  Results Cad Geometry

Type of Analysis Study name Static 1 Analysis type Static Material Properties Model Reference Properties Components Name: AISI 1020 Model type: Linear Elastic Isotropic Default failure criterion: Max von Mises Stress Yield strength: 351.571 N/mm^2 Tensile strength: 420.507 N/mm^2 SolidBody 1(Cut-Extrude1)(plate) Mesh information Mesh type Solid Mesh Study Results Name Type Min Max Stress VON: von Mises Stress 4.429e+000N/mm^2 (MPa) Node: 29 1.597e+002N/mm^2 (MPa) Node: 6382

Comparison Results:

Sl.No	Type of Results	Hand Calculation Results	SoildWorks Simulation Results
1	Stress	1.599E+2	1.597E+2

SOLIDWORKS Solutions for Data Management

REUSE EXISTING DESIGN

 

• Advanced searching inside Windows Explorer
• Configurable search form presents for users with input fields relating to company specific information
• Built-in file preview helps confirm the desired file is accessed

VERSION AND REVISION

• Versions are automatically created with updated references
• Flexible revision scheme to adhere to company standards
• Increment revisions automatically based on a defined approval process
• Easily retrieve previous versions of parts, assemblies, and drawings.

ELECTRONIC WORKFLOW

• Control access to certain users or groups based on Lifecycle status
• Automatically send notifications to designated users and groups when files have changed the lifecycle status
• Utilize configurable states to add electronic signature information during the approval process
• Easy-to-use graphical workflow tool

MANAGE DIFFERENT FILES

• Easily produce customized bills of materials (BOMs) for different utilisation
• Manage, view, and print document from more than 250 file types including major CAD formats, Microsoft Office files, PDFs, images and animations
• Automatically create neutral files, such as PDFs, eDrawings or STEP
• Take advantage of the many included integrations to popular CAD applications, SOLIDWORKS Electrical, and Microsoft Office

SOLIDWORKS Solutions for Data Management

(Communicate, Organise, Manage and Replicate Data with SOLIDWORKS PDM)

(SOLIDWORKS PDM – Unrivalled Capabilities)

SOLIDWORKS Solutions for Quality /Inspection

DIMXPERT

• Detail designs without errors, automatically dimension “manufacturing” features in 3D.
• Check the dimensional completeness of your design
• Graphically display dimensional status
• Display dimensions created in 3D automatically on the drawing
• Apply +/- or geometric dimension and tolerances
• Ease the Process of Creating manufacturing Dimensions

TOLANALYST

• TolAnalyst uses the input from Dimxpert.
• Powerful tolerance analysis tool that automatically checks the effects of tolerances on parts and assemblies to ensure consistent fit of components and to verify tolerancing schemes before the product goes into production.
• The tolerance analysis can be rerun instantly if a dimensioning or tolerancing change is made, enabling you to get to an optimized tolerancing scheme more quickly.

SIGMUNDWORKS

• Five analysis types including; Worst Case, RSS (Root Sum Square), Modified RSS, Process Centering RSS, and Monte Carlo Simulations are possible
• Wide range of statistical distributions to emulate real-world
• Tolerance Optimizer (patented)
• Single-source documentation for tolerance stacks
• Automatic statistical, sensitivity, SPC, cost-savings, and impact report generation

INSPECTION

• First Article Inspection (FAI) and in-process inspection software that streamlines and automates the creation of ballooned inspection drawings and inspection reports (AS9102, PPAP, etc.).
• Enables users to leverage their legacy data regardless of whether they have SOLIDWORKS files, PDFs, or TIFFs.
• Each characteristic value can be entered manually, by using a digital caliper, or by importing coordinate measuring machine (CMM) results.

 

 

COLLABRATIVE WORKING IN A MULTI-USER ENVIRONMENT

Working in a multi-user environment is a challenging and error-prone task in an engineering sector. SOLIDWORKS has options and tools to perform tasks in a multi-user environment to a great extent in an easy manner. But it is important to setup a systematic multi-user environment.

Setting a Multi-user Environment:
The first step for a multi-user system is assigning defined tasks for each and every person & maintaining separate level for work flow.
1) Manager : Scheduling the task & Instructing the required changes
2) Supervisors / Leaders : Check the data and assigning & coordinating the work
3) Bottom level workers / Designers : Will perform the assigned work (Designing)

File Storage:
The most important task is to keep data files in a centralized server or system. It should contain only read-only access to avoid accidental changes in data files.

It is difficult to work together if the files are stored in the local hard drives, especially in SOLIDWORKS. Hence proper Implementation plan is required for seamless work-flow.

File Transfer:
Supervisors / Leaders should take care of the file transfer (in & out) and he is provided with administrative access to the data files.

Task Management:
Manager will schedule the task to the concern person and monitor the individual as well as team updates. Even simple mistakes can cause major problems.

SOLIDWORKS Options:
In SOLIDWORKS, following settings are available for collaborative working.

Tools --> Options --> System Options --> External Reference
Tools --> Options --> System Options --> Collaboration

These options control the file permissions within the team and help to work in the most recent or updated files by every users.

External Reference:
In this section, the first option will be “Open referenced documents with read-only access”. This option must be checked when two or more users are working in the same directory.

When this option is checked all referenced documents related to the assembly will be opened only with the read-only access by default.

Collaboration:

This entire section is dedicated to multi-user settings. Checking “Enable multi-user environment” option changes the work-flow from single user to multi-user by activating the other options of the collaboration section.









If “Add shortcut to menu items for multi-user environment” is checked, a shortcut is added to file menu list as Get Write Access / Make Read-only. This will help the multi-users to work on a single document (part or assembly) and make changes accordingly without any error.

“Check if files opened read-only have been modified by other users” option is to check the whether the opened read-only file have been modified or saved by other user for the interval specified by the current user. (Note: Lightweight components are not checked)

If the system detects a change, a tool-tip in the lower right of the graphics area points to an icon on the status bar. Click the icon to access the Reload dialog box. Reload dialog is used by the current user to reload or update the modifications done by the other users.

This section also contains options related to comments which can be useful for communicating the changes required and necessary details between the various users with time-stamp added to the comments in the multi-user environment.