What’s New in SOLIDWORKS

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update, World News

We are excited to share with you some of the many exciting enhancements being delivered in SOLIDWORKS 2022 that will increase your productivity and help you not just get to market faster, but smarter. We can’t cover all the new features and enhancements in one blog, but here are a few highlights. Keep an eye out for weekly blogs over the next few months that will drill down deeper into what’s new in each product within the SOLIDWORKS ecosystem. SOLIDWORKS CAD Improved large assembly design. Better performance of Detailing Mode that further increases the speed of drawing creation as well as the ability to add hole callouts, edit existing dimensions and annotations, and add Detail, Break and Crop views. Faster file operations, configuration switching, and automatic Lightweight mode resolving even the most complex assemblies. Streamlined workflows for creating assemblies. Enhancements to assembly modeling include interference-detection reports that can be exported with images to Excel spreadsheets; the ability to save defeatured models as configurations so users can toggle between full and simplified versions; auto-resolve lightweight components; curve length for chain patterns; and an option to automatically resolve lightweight components upon expanding Feature Tree node. Better part design flexibility. Redo now available for over 60 features and commands in parts; sheet metal for edge flanges on non-planar tangent edges; complex flanges can be flattened; and the ability to add and evaluate equations in file properties and cut list properties. Work faster on large, complex designs. Improved performance for occlusion culling, silhouette edges, and drawings; open, save and close assemblies; detection and reporting of circular references; and adding files to SOLIDWORKS PDM vault. Connect to the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. Create seamless product development workflows and easily extend them with new tools as your business needs evolve. This connected the design-to-manufacturing ecosystem in the cloud enables teams to collaborate on real-time data anywhere and at any time on any Internet-enabled device. SOLIDWORKS Simulation Solve more models with contact faster. Faster contact simulation significantly speeds up contact simulation calculations. Improvements include parallel computing, better CPU usage, faster stiffness calculations, and more robust data communication for contact. Better meshing. You can’t simulate until you create a mesh. SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2022 offers a new mesh default: no enforced common modes that enable users to obtain a mesh much faster with the same accuracy as with common nodes between parts. Also, new mesh diagnostics enable users to identify, isolate, and be prompted when poor quality elements need to be fixed, improving mesh quality. Tap into built-in intelligence. Who doesn’t want a smarter way to simulate? With an automatic selection of the equation-solver, your simulations will be more accurate and faster. SOLIDWORKS Plastics Redesigned Plastics Manager tree. A redesign of various nodes of the Plastics Manager tree provides a more streamlined ad logical workflow for material selection, domain specification, process parameters, and other key plastics simulation tasks. Taking advantage of these new workflows will greatly simplify simulation preprocessing. Improved cooling results accuracy. Improvements to baffle and bubbler cooling system components include a new feature that splits flow passage into two halves when a blade is inserted in the channel. For bubblers, the plat is replaced with a smaller inner tube. More accurate and up-to-date material data. We have forged partnerships with leading global plastic material suppliers to ensure our customers have the most precise plastics material data, which leads to improved results. SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2021 Faster 3D electrical routing. Performance with the routing of wires in 3D has been vastly improved enabling users to 3xperiment more quickly with electrical route path choices inside complex equipment to refine the overall product design. User rights customization. You can now customize user access to areas, such as libraries, projects, product data and drawing controls for members of your workgroup to ensure data security and output consistency. Gain a more realistic of your product. Determining the mass properties of your wire, cable, and electrical harness design inside the 3D model of your overall machine, product, or vehicle.  

Flexible Component

Create Your Own Flexible Component (Intro.)

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

[A New Balloon Air Pump Design] “Flexible Component” is one of the new features in SOLIDWORKS 2022. You can define a part component as flexible to drive the geometry of flexible components by the assembly geometry. That means it works only in assembly files to make a rigid part model become flexible without creating several configurations. Better Explanation for Assembly Model! To make the spring body a “flexible component”, we can avoid creating several configurations to explain our design in different positions as in the above pictures. However, this blog will be the introduction purpose first. In other words, this blog will be continuous in part2 and part3.   Introduction for The Flexible Component Please note that the external reference must be one of the following entity types: The “Make Part Flexible” feature can find it in customize > commands > Assembly categories. Or you can directly use the search commands function. For part2, I will show the details of how to create the spring sketch for the flexible components feature. For part3, I will show you more advance about how to create the sketch for the flexible balloon!!!

Simulation

Intro to Metal Forming Simulation with an Explicit Solver

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

The 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS® Simulation portfolio includes the ability to simulate the metal-forming process. The products can be leveraged on SOLIDWORKS® models when connected to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Forming processes may include stamping, punch stretching, forging, drawing, and more. Truth be told, simulating forming processes can be a difficult task. Usually, they involve geometric, material, and contact nonlinearities. However, simulation of forming processes offers advantages that outweigh the difficulties. Forming simulations can reduce both the cost and length of a product development cycle by identifying potential problems prior to tooling or fabrication. Simulation can also improve the quality of the part being manufactured through testing to ensure that the manufacturing processes appropriately account for spring back, stretching of the parts, and thickness reduction. Figure 1: Forming a flap into a sheet metal part Validate on the Fly Forming simulation tools on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform recreate manufacturing processes virtually to check for potential problems such as thinning, wrinkling, or cracking. This enables you to adapt on the fly during development, which often eliminates the need for multiple physical prototypes. Plus, you can experiment with different kinds of materials to see how they will behave in the real world (virtually) and then decide which material works best for your application based on actual performance. Also, you can test process parameters such as manufacturing speeds or temperature levels. Costly Physical Testing Cycle In a traditional production environment, without metal forming simulation, you must develop physical tools along the way to validate your design. And this process may require several iterations before getting to a final version—a very slow and expensive process to be sure. However, finite element analysis (FEA) testing shows you how your products will perform, without ever doing a physical test. You can eliminate iteration cycles since you can test designs and materials to validate what will happen during the forming process. Figure 2: General development process supported by FEA  Simulation Tool Belt Metal forming simulations are numerically challenging because you will often see large deformations, plasticity, or complex contact situations (with large sliding interactions and friction) which makes for highly nonlinear simulation studies. The 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS portfolio of simulation solutions provides additional tools for your FEA tool belt. When you encounter simulations in SOLIDWORKS that demand a deeper level of nonlinear studies, you can simply reach for another tool, in this case, the explicit solver within 3DEXPERIENCE to validate forming processes that will increase the efficiency and speed of your product development process. If you would like more information about simulation for metal forming processes, please contact. Figure 3: Plastic strain result of a deep drawing simulation Click here to watch the forming simulation technical webinar that will walk you through the part development process and demonstrate how forming simulation recreates the manufacturing process virtually. If you would like more information about simulation for metal forming processes, please Contact Us.  

New Addition to Thicken Command in SOLIDWORKS 2022: Defining Thicken Direction

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

SOLIDWORKS 2022 adds a very nice option to one of my favorite surface-to-solid tools, Thicken. Thicken takes a surface body (which has zero thickness) and makes it a solid (making it a volume) by specifying a thickness value and side to thicken. Until now, the calculation was based on surface normal, which is often what you want. Now, though, we can specify a direction for the offset created by the Thicken command. Consider the default behavior shown here: You can see in the preview that the thickness surface being created is normal to the faces of the surface we are thickening. Now look at the preview we get when we specify a direction vector: You can see in this preview the offset surface being made, but the Thicken command is normal to the selected planar face on the solid part (purple highlight), affecting both faces being offset from the surface body. This gives us a different solid than the default settings. What if we select a different face of the solid to set the Thicken direction? We would get this: How about if we select a line from a sketch to be the Thicken direction vector? The examples above show a surface body with two planar faces. Here are a few examples of the same option when thickening a spline surface body: Thicken may not be a command you use every day, but when you need it, it is a valuable tool. While thickening normal to the surface selected is often the desired result, the option we now have to specify a direction vector adds even more power. Do you use Thicken? If you want to see SOLIDWORKS 2022 in action request for demo.

Equations

Use of Equations To Drive Your Designs Swiftly

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

EQUATIONS and GLOBAL VARIABLES It is a great idea to choose SOLIDWORKS to model something because when we are making a solid model in SOLIDWORKS, it is not so challenging as SOLIDWORKS itself has a very interactive user interface. Anyone can start with SOLIDWORKS easily with some considerably basic training sessions and groom those skills by joining the online community of SOLIDWORKS. SOLIDWORKS has itself a large customer base and online community. Exploring SOLIDWORKS is much easier along with large online content availability and strong online community support. Apart from above SOLIDWORKS has also a large reseller network to provide quality support and training to ensure uninterrupted utilization of SOLIDWORKS at user end. Inside SOLIDWORKS there are several key features that help us to make our model in such manner to reduce rework, errors, etc. Here basically we are going to discuss a very much strong functionality of SOLIDWORKS after it’s the user interface, SOLIDWORKS has some remarkably interesting features which will enable the user to make a model more flexible against changes. Here I am going to discuss such types of features called EQUATIONS and GLOBAL VARIABLES. Modeling with equations will prevent the 3D model to go out of control while making modifications fast due to time constraints. This makes modifications accurate and error-free. We can drive changes in our model swiftly by using equations and global variables which make us enable to change dimensions and other entities like pattern instances in our model with minimum errors occurred. With the help of equations, we can make our model easily driven by some key dimensions, independent variables, standard measurements, document properties, mathematical functions, etc in relation to the help of some mathematical operators. We can also make our model-driven by some limited number of variables called global variables which will make changes easy. Equations help us to control configurations easier. With the help of equations, we can maintain ratios constant throughout all sets of different configurations. Using equations, we can control several things like size ratio i.e. multiple dimensions in common ratio, the number of feature pattern instances variable with size, etc in models like impellers, propellers, the cylinder of an IC engine, etc. These capabilities of equations play a vital role in automating model as per firm requirement with zero or minimum errors. Equations play an important role in driving changes in our 3D models when we use automation tools like DriveWorksXPress and enable us to make desired modifications by changing the minimum number of dimensions. If you have asked a question that how you will control the number of teeth in a gear along with root circle diameter or in a screw how you will control thread length against overall length and top cut size with inscribing diameter of the hexagonal head. Sometimes there is a need for a highly automated model so that by changing one entity or variable a set of entities should be modified automatically.   The simple answer is by use of equations. This feature enable us to link multiple entities with each other in such a manner so that modification of the model is easy and changes float swiftly without making any major error. These following videos will clear the idea about model automation controlled through equations and global variables. Overview There are several ways to search equations viewer in SOLIDWORKS like: – You can find equation viewer property manager from command search And, from the tools menu The equation viewer There are four main part of Equations viewer Equation views Global variable Equations Linking with variables Dimension names Global variables Other equations Mathematical functions File properties Dimension measurements Now take a short discussion over the Global Variables. Global variables are independent as well as dependent variables which are sometimes used as linked values to drive other dimensions in such a manner that our complete model is modified by changing some or all global variables. We need not change dimensions individually.   Hands-on Let us make this model automated for outer diameter, shell thickness, number of ribs, and depth so that by changing internal diameter the outer diameter, depth, shell thickness, number of ribs, and thickness of ribs will be modified automatically. How to do it? In the following video, we can see when we create a model without equations, we must change each dimension and pattern instance mentioned in the above question each time individually as per requirement i.e. no automatic modification occurred. Which is time-consuming and sometimes error-prone also? But when we link some or all entities with the internal diameter with the use of equations or we use equations in such a manner that each entity is linked directly or indirectly with internal diameter, all entities are modified just by changing the internal diameter automatically. Which is a very time-saving method as compared to the previous modeling. You can also see that we can drive our model by creating a global variable named “ID” and linking some or all dimensions to this global variable. Also, equations enable us to link our dimension and other entities with current measurements as you can see in the video in turn linking entities with global variables, rib thickness is linked with cylinder height by using measure……. Option available after pressing equal sign. See the following videos for a better understanding. The gist of the story So, by the above discussion, we can understand how much extent to which a SOLIDWORKS user can drive the changes in the CAD model automatically without facing errors. Equations will help users to save time in model modification and prevent frequently occurring errors during modifications.  

Make Organization Work Efficient Without Any Glitch With The Help Of SOLIDWORKS PDM

SOLIDWORKS Technical Update

SOLIDWORKS PDM (Product Data Management) SOLIDWORKS PDM (Product Data Management) is such a software to manage the day to day work data and related all information and other documents on a single centralized system. This type of information includes the Computer-Aided Design Data (CAD), part development, manufacturing information, notes, documents, and much more. SOLIDWORKS PDM always is easy to access the data of any type. It will not accessible tool for the employees that are working inside the organization either they can access there data from any location. It also helps to connect all the same organization data on a single server. The SOLIDWORKS PDM is used in various Departments like Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Purchase, and many more.   Rewards of SOLIDWORKS PDM (Product Data Management) Quickly search the correct document – The Workgroup search facility required users to build search criteria every time they wanted to search for something by adding properties into a search criteria box. Secure use as per the access control – It will secure by the user login while the user have to login inside it then they access any file or folder. Managing and organizing the data – It is as similar the folder structure that builds in the explorer so we can create the folder structure or we copy and paste the same folder and upload the files on the server. Edit or View the file by the Permission – As per the normal explorer folder any one can access the file or the folder and they can change any of the document or CAD file but in this we can give the permission at the particular user can edit or view that file. Managing the revision control – As per the different organization, they have the differ revision format so as per the manually revision it quite be mismatched or misplace in this it will help to generate the revision automatically by their organization revision format. Control the duplicity of the files – Some of the times user create the same name file or he will copy the file with same name so it will create the two files with the same name. We have that permission we can control the or re-right the file name and control the duplicity. Work in the scenario in COVID-19 The novel corona virus is still wreaking havoc in all the industries globally. The business and lives of people have been impacted dramatically due to the life-threatening effects of the corona virus. The majority of IT and Tech giants are committed to giving utmost priority to public health and have made significant changes in the employee working styles. Major conferences and events have been cancelled or turned into digital events. Considering the far-reaching ramifications, work in the corporate and technology sector has been impacted to a great extent. Many companies in the global industry have either shut their factories or banned business-related travelling. Many organizations are also encouraging their employees to work from home to prevent further outbreak of the infection. As lockdown stage is going on, where economic activities came to a halt. In this time of coronavirus crisis, We can help you with SOLIDWORKS PDM (Product Data Management Tool). In SOLIDWORKS PDM we have an option to put the vault online with the help of web 2 server. What is Web 2 Server Web 2 Client is a platform that connects your SOLIDWORKS PDM vault with an Internet Browser. It is beneficial for both the users that are working internally or externally. Web 2 server allows users to connect to their SOLIDWORKS PDM vault from anywhere they want to access through a virtual private network (VPN) with a safer Internet experience.   What is Virtual Private Network (VPN) A virtual Private Network (VPN) is basically a secure connection between your device and the internet. This private network allows you to process your data via an encrypted connection. It increases online privacy, provides more online security, and allows them to browse the internet with more freedom. A (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. Benefits of Web 2 Viewing and editing capability of any file type – While the login with the user on the internet browser with the previous permission in PDM it will follow in the web 2 so you don’t have to give the permission or the file or folder again Independently browsing – It could be independently browsing with the online and the offline mode. Where the file contains and where it has been used information – It will show and help online also to get the information of the file where it has been contained and that file is used in how many assembly. Process the file to the senior – As per the given permission and the right to proceed with the file to another person Download and upload the file – You can download and upload the file on the PDM vault that is accessed through the internet browser.    Summary As over all we have discussed about the Product Data Management (PDM) where it is used what are the benefits. We have discussed over the COVID-19 and in this how we can proceed with our work efficiently to reduce and prevent further outbreaks of the infection. We have talk about the Web 2 server that is a part of PDM to access the Vault through the internet browser. Then for connecting the Web 2 client it in mandatory for the Virtual Private Network (VPN). What are the Benefits of Web 2 sever?