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

Strategies for the analysis of uniform shafts

This section describes the structural details and the modeling strategy for the analysis of shafts using the SOLIDWORKS simulation environment.

Structural details

The technical details presented for the analysis of beams/frames in Chapter 3, Analyses of Beams and Frames, are also applicable to the analysis of simple shafts. This means you will need to know the following technical details ahead of the analysis:

  • Dimensions:
    • Details of the cross-section
    • Geometric length
  • Material properties
  • External loads applied to the shaft
  • The support provided to the shaft to prevent rigid body motion

Modeling strategies

The strategy to be adopted for creating the geometric model of a shaft to be analyzed will often depend on the complexity of the structural details. Assuming we restrict ourselves to long straight shafts with simple and uniform cross-sections, then we may choose to adopt either of the following approaches...