SOLIDWORKS Premium

Easily evaluate how your product will perform and move throughout its operational cycle with motion analysis using SOLIDWORKS Simulation. Visualize your product moving as it would in the real world and measure the forces and loads on your design. Plus, use the data to correctly size motors and create the ‘correct’ mechanism to ensure performance, product quality, and safety.

Tightly integrated with SOLIDWORKS CAD, motion analysis using SOLIDWORKS Simulation can be a regular part of your design process—reducing the need for costly prototypes, eliminating rework or delays, and saving time and development costs.

Motion Analysis Overview

Motion analysis is solved using a time-based approach for rigid body kinematic and dynamic problems. SOLIDWORKS Motion takes the designer beyond the free drag movement available in a CAD environment and into a true physical calculation of the forces and motions of an assembly as it would move under environmental loads (external forces) and/or internal loads (motors, springs, and dampers).

SOLIDWORKS Motion simulation can calculate the effect of:

• Forces

• Springs

• Dampers

• Gravity

• Contact between components

• Bushings

Once the assembly motion has been calculated, a structural analysis of the components under the motion-induced loads (accelerations and joint forces) can easily be carried out, either within the motion study or exported to a structural analysis study.

Linear stress analysis with SOLIDWORKS Simulation enables designers and engineers to quickly and efficiently validate quality, performance, and safety—all while creating their design.

Tightly integrated with SOLIDWORKS CAD, linear stress analysis using SOLIDWORKS Simulation can be a regular part of your design process, reducing the need for costly prototypes, eliminating rework and delays, and saving time and development costs.

Linear Stress Analysis Overview

Linear stress analysis calculates the stresses and deformations of geometry given three basic assumptions:

1. The part or assembly under load deforms with small rotations and displacements

2. The product loading is static (ignores inertia) and constant over time

3. The material has a constant stress strain relationship (Hooke’s law)

SOLIDWORKS Simulation uses finite element analysis (FEA) methods to discretize design components into solid, shell, or beam elements and uses linear stress analysis to determine the response of parts and assemblies due to the effect of:

• Forces

• Pressures

• Accelerations

• Temperatures

• Contact between components

Loads can be imported from thermal, flow, and motion Simulation studies to perform multiphysics analysis.

In order to carry out stress analysis, component material data must be known. The standard SOLIDWORKS CAD material database is pre-populated with materials that can be used by SOLIDWORKS Simulation, and the database is easily customizable to include your particular material requirements.

Tolerance Analysis Overview

Quickly and easily check dimensions and tolerances using SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD software to assess the manufacturability of your design long before reaching production. Check parts and assembly tolerances during design, accelerating the design process, saving time and development costs, and increasing productivity.

Tolerance Analysis Overview

SOLIDWORKS includes TolAnalyst™ 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.

TolAnalyst provides automated tolerance analysis studies to:

• Assess min/max tolerances

• Perform root-sum-squared (RSS) tolerance analysis

• List contributing features and tolerances categorized by percent impact

Make changes to dimension and tolerancing schemes, and instantly run an updated tolerance analysis to see the impact of your changes.

Share data between electrical CAD (ECAD) and mechanical CAD (MCAD) designers using the CircuitWorks™ tool in SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD software. CircuitWorks enables users to share, compare, update, and track electrical design data so users can more quickly resolve electrical-mechanical integration problems. Mechanical and electrical engineers can work closely in creating complex designs, speeding up the product development process, saving time and development costs, and accelerating time-to-market.

Electrical CAD to Mechanical CAD Interchange Overview

Efficient sharing of CAD data is one of the biggest challenges for mechanical and electrical designers. In a consumer product, such as a laptop, where reducing size and weight while preserving aesthetics are all important criteria, the electrical engineer designing the printed circuit board (PCB) and selecting components (such as fans and power supplies) must clearly communicate ECAD data to the mechanical engineer. In turn, the mechanical engineer needs to clearly communicate back mechanical design changes affecting the design of the PCB.

CircuitWorks efficiently promotes this two-way data exchange. Design teams can work together to resolve ECAD-MCAD integration problems and move faster to create innovative, higher quality products. Designs can start with mechanical aspects of PCB design and then be passed to electrical engineers to create the electronic design. The overall design can then be passed back to the mechanical engineers. This process repeats continuously during the product design and development process.

CircuitWorks also includes a common library of 3D electrical components to help all designers work to company standards. You can import thermal properties with components and run an electronic cooling analysis inside SOLIDWORKS to check for proper cooling of electronic devices.

Key functionality includes the ability to:

• Exchange data with CircuitWorks using IDF, ProStep (IDX) or PADS (*.ASC) formats

• Create PCB outlines, keep-out/keep-in areas, locations of major components, and maximum heights—then pass the design to electronics designers

• Filter out holes, plated holes, slots, and vias to understand board mounting and interconnection and the mechanical aspects of the design

• Import detailed electronic designs from ECAD, review the design, then build the PCB assembly with SOLIDWORKS software

• Compare different boards and board revisions to fully understand differences

• Include design change notes as data passes between electrical and mechanical team members

• Track changes as versions of the design are exchanged between ECAD and MCAD

Accelerate the development process and save time by designing piping and tubing in 3D during system design with SOLIDWORKS Premium. By integrating piping and tubing during the design process, designers can help ensure efficient assembly, operation, and serviceability, avoiding rework, delays, and extra cost.

Piping and Tubing Design Overview

Use the wide range of tools in SOLIDWORKS Premium to simplify design and documentation of piping and tubing for a wide range of systems and applications, including machinery, skid systems, and process plant piping. With SOLIDWORKS Premium, designers can:

• Create piping system designs with butt welded, socket welded, threaded, and other connections

• Create flexible or rigid tubing lines

• Automate placement of supports and hangers for all lines

• Generate bend tables for tube routes to support manufacturing

• Calculate cut lengths for all pipe and tube runs

• Auto-route pipe/tube paths through the design that can be easily edited according to assembly and service needs

• Ensure minimum bend radii in flexible tube systems

• Output PCF files for use with ISOGEN® piping software

• Export tubing/piping bend tables to CNC benders

• Automatically generate piping/tubing manufacturing drawings from your 3D models

• Import logical connection information design from SOLIDWORKS Solution Partner products

• Automatically create bill of material (BOM), cut lists, bend tables, and other manufacturing documentation

• Access a CAD library of piping and tubing components

• Use the Routing Library Manager (RLM) wizard to guide creation of custom piping/tubing components

Quickly design and route electrical wiring, harnessing, cabling, and conduit assemblies of products in 3D using the SOLIDWORKS Premium package. Integrating these systems during product design rather than adding them later accelerates your development process, saves time and rework costs, and helps to ensure efficient product assembly and serviceability.

Electrical Cable Harness and Conduit Design Overview

SOLIDWORKS Premium includes design tools that build a path of pipes, tubes, or electrical cables for your assembly. These tools cover the needs of a growing number of products that use sensors, control systems, and other systems that require wiring and cabling.

Routing creates a special type of subassembly that builds a path of pipes, tubes, or electrical cables between components. Routes include electrical wiring enclosures, fabricated cable, soldered copper, PVC, flexible tubing, welded piping, and associated fittings. Start the route by inserting route components into an assembly to define the start and end connection points of the path. Next, define the path using a 3D sketch. Then, SOLIDWORKS software generates the pipe, tube, and wire parts along the centerline and connects the parts to the route components.

Specific electrical cable harness and conduit design functionality includes the ability to:

• Position all equipment and run electrical routes throughout the overall design

• Route electrical cable, harness, and conduit systems through your product, including ribbon cable

• Determine required lengths of all wires, cables, harness segments as you design

• Flatten electrical cable harness for manufacturing documentation

• Import “From-To” electrical connection information from schematic design tools

• Automatically route segments through your products to speed creation

• Generate complete bill of material (BOM) and wire cut lists for harnesses for manufacturing

• Create cable harnesses as mechanical-only or with electrical data

• Run rigid or flexible electrical conduit segments

• Include additional components, such as mounting hardware, splices, connectors, insulation, looms, heat-shrink tubing, cable ties

• Routing Library Manager (RLM) wizard to guide creation of custom electrical components

Facilitate reverse engineering that can speed up your design process, save time and development costs, and accelerate your time-to-market by converting scanned data of physical products into SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD geometry.

ScanTo3D Overview

ScanTo3D with SOLIDWORKS Premium reduces the time required to build complex 3D models of real-world items, such as sculpted objects, and anatomical items. 3D data such as point clouds and mesh (which is attained from laser scanners and other devices) can be imported, parsed, manipulated, modified, and ultimately turned into 3D solids and surfaces. ScanTo3D functionality includes the ability to:

• Convert imported 3D scan data to a SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD model

• Create either a surface or a mesh

• Utilize Wizards for mesh, curve, and surface

• Apply texture data to your mesh from imported texture files

• Use the Deviation Analysis tool to inspect for and display deviations between the mesh and other entities created by referencing the mesh

• Refine imported mesh and then convert to SOLIDWORKS 3D solid part

• Import point cloud data

• Export scanned data in multiple formats: *.xyz, *.wrl, *.stl, *.3ds, *.obj

Often products like leather goods, sports equipment, footwear, and products made from composite materials like carbon fiber and fiberglass have complex shapes, but are manufactured from materials that start out as flat stock, such as cow hides, nylon, cloth, and flat composite sheet. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately determine or estimate the size and shape of the surfaces in their flattened state in order to be able to cut the material from the flat sheet.

Automated, Interactive Surface Flattening and Data Export

SOLIDWORKS has always provided the ability to automatically flatten certain types of geometry automatically. The SOLIDWORKS Flat Pattern feature for sheet metal parts provides automated flattening per sheet metal K-Factor and Bend Tables. However, when geometry is more complex, such as with nonanalytic surfaces, more control is often required to determine how the surface should be flattened.

SOLIDWORKS Advanced Surface Flattening functionality provides control and flexibility to easily flatten these more complex surfaces. You can automatically flatten the surface and interrogate an interactive deformation plot to graphically view stretch and compression concentrations that can occur when flattening some surfaces with high curvature. Split lines or cuts can then be added to allow for relief of stresses in these areas. You can also select “control edges” to guide the flattening process to maintain length and shape of specific edges, which is particularly helpful for more highly contoured surfaces. These flattened surface outlines or patterns can then be exported for material cutting in a variety of export formats.

SOLIDWORKS Routing users can route rectangular and round sections to meet their design needs. Equipment designers, product designers, machine designers, facility designers and others all need rectangular section routing to complete their designs that include ducting, cable trays, conveyors, material handling chutes, and many other systems.

SOLIDWORKS Routing let’s you:

• Generate and run rectangular (or other non-round) route sections using the same familiar SOLIDWORKS Routing user interface

• Select from various standard route and sub-route types such as Ducting/Trunking, Cable Tray, and Ribbon Cable

• Leverage the ‘User Defined’ route type for HVAC, Conveyors, space planning, etc.

• Leverage initial Design Libraries for building additional libraries of rectangular sections

• Automatically insert rectangular elbows and other fitting as you sketch your route paths

• Automatically update the BOM for your route, including all fittings and sections, as you design