Book Image

Practical Finite Element Simulations with SOLIDWORKS 2022

By : Khameel B. Mustapha
Book Image

Practical Finite Element Simulations with SOLIDWORKS 2022

By: Khameel B. Mustapha

Overview of this book

SOLIDWORKS is a dominant computer-aided design (CAD) software for the 3D modeling, designing, and analysis of components. This book helps you get to grips with SOLIDWORKS Simulation, which is a remarkable and integral part of SOLIDWORKS predominantly deployed for advanced product performance assessment and virtual prototyping. With this book, you'll take a hands-on approach to learning SOLIDWORKS Simulation with the help of step-by-step guidelines on various aspects of the simulation workflow. You'll begin by learning about the requirements for effective simulation of parts and components, along with the idealization of physical components and their representation with finite element models. As you progress through the book, you'll find exercises at the end of each chapter, and you'll be able to download the geometry models used in all the chapters from GitHub. Finally, you’ll discover how to set up finite element simulations for the static analysis of components under various types of loads, and with different types of materials, from simple isotropic to composite, and different boundary conditions. By the end of this SOLIDWORKS 2022 book, you'll be able to conduct basic and advanced static analyses with SOLIDWORKS Simulation and have practical knowledge of how to best use the family of elements in the SOLIDWORKS Simulation library.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
1
Section 1: An Introduction to SOLIDWORKS Simulation
6
Section 2: SOLIDWORKS Simulation with Shell and Solid Elements
10
Section 3: Advanced SOLIDWORKS Simulation with Complex Material and Loading Behavior

Analysis of advanced composite structures

The world of analysis with composite materials is vast. So far, in the completed case study, we have dealt with a component constructed of an 8-ply laminate, with all plies having the same material (which is CFRP). For advanced composite structures, things can get pretty complex. For this reason, among other things, you need to know the following:

  • In SOLIDWORKS Simulation, you can only have a maximum of 52 plies.
  • If you have a total number of plies, say n, take note that SOLIDWORKS's ply-counting procedure starts from the bottom surface (ply 1) to the top surface (ply n).
  • You can have each ply derived from different materials, not just one material.
  • You can have complex geometric bodies with intersections. Nevertheless, no matter how complex a structure may be, to analyze it with a composite material, it must be created as a collection of surface bodies.

With this achieved, you can leverage the skills and workflow...