MJ Engineering Blog

Well, what a week it has been. Last night concluded the FEA 201 meeting, which was the follow-up to our FEA 101 session.

Both sessions went very well and were well attended. Perhaps the biggest issue with the sessions was trying to not lose the FEA novices while answering the in-depth questions of the more advanced users. We got through it – there were certainly some puzzled looks, but overall I think everybody found the sessions enlightening and useful. Look for more information on our next session around June time frame.

Richard

On April 22nd, 5:30pm to 8pm at MJ Engineering, we will host FEA 101.  The purpose of this seminar is to produce interest and knowledge in SW users about FEA and the SolidWorks Simulation product line.  Our hope is to create enough interest to support a local Simulation user group in Central Ohio.  If you have thought about FEA but feel overwhelmed or unsure of yourself – come on out and learn some more about FEA.

Richard

Some of you many know that I have tried several times in the past to get a Central Ohio Cosmos/Simulation User Group off the ground. Each attempt has been unsuccessful for a variety of reasons.

I am convinced that the lack of success has been for 1 of 2 reasons:
1. There simply aren’t enough users of Cosmos/Simulation to support a user group based on the percentage attendance we see in the SW User Groups or

2. I am simply not getting the information to the correct people.

I find the second reason very difficult to deal with – VARs have done a great job with trying to get the word out, but their contact often isn’t the guy using FEA either.

The first reason is something I can help with though – and here is what I want to do. I would like to offer a weekly seminar (FEA 101) at MJ Engineering starting in May. Days/times are flexible right now during this planning phase – look to see more in April.

The purpose of this FEA 101 seminar will be to introduce people to FEA that are not familiar with it on an everyday basis. So, if you have people working for you that use FEA but you don’t know what questions to ask, or you have been asked to start using FEA but are way overwhelmed by the whole process, or you just want to learn more about FEA in general, then send me an email (rwand_@_mjengineering.com) and we can get the seminar started.

Richard

What a time we had at SW World 2009.  Once again, the user community outdid itself.  There were over 4300 attendees at SW World – far exceeding the expected attendance.  As for Simulation, I learned several things that I didn’t fully realize (we currently use 2008 still for production work).

1.  My presentation entitled “A Case Study in Analysis: Verifying Strain Gauge Testing with SolidWorks Simulation” was very well received.  I was approached for more information about the topics in the presentation by multiple SolidWorks personnel. 

2.  I love having SW personnel asking me questions about the way we use the software and why we do things this way or that way.  I believe that as a user we have opportunity but also an obligation to provide feedback to SW personnel as they request it.  If we don’t do this then I feel we don’t really have any ground to complain when things don’t go the way we want.

3.  I sat in on a presentation that walked through the process involved with composite shell analysis in 2009.  While not particularly robust at this point (it only works in shells, there are some directional issues depending on the curvature and software choices) it is really neat to see new functionality like this being implemented.  It is safe to say that the Simulation guys have been working hard.

4.  I also sat in on Alpha testing of 2010 Simulation.  I would love to tell you about what I saw, but the NDA I signed says I can’t, so I won’t.  I will only say that there are many exciting things being worked on in 2010 Simulation too.  I just hope some of them make it into the final release.

5.  The biggest overwhelming feeling I got from the Simulation guys is a feeling that there is a  change in philosophy brewing.  There have been some staffing changes in the Simulation department, and gone (or so it appears) is the mentality that anyone and everyone should be doing FEA and getting right answers.  There appears to be a more cautious approach towards model setup educating the user about proper use of the FEA to assure more accurate answers.  None of which is a bad thing – after all, most of us FEA geeks all cringed when SW would advertise “Blue is Good, Red is Bad”

I will have more updates to follow, please check back soon.  We are working on putting my SW World Presentation on our website and as soon as the link is posted, it will be posted here too.  Thanks for your support and please contact me with any questions, comments and/or blog suggestions.

Richard

Well, this is new!  I have never blogged about anything before, so let’s see how this goes.  I got interested in doing this when I realized that the SolidWorks blog roll really didn’t contain many blogs about FEA and SolidWorks Simulation (formerly known as CosmosWorks or even more formerly known as DesignStar).

We will open up with an easy one:  I will be giving a presentation at SolidWorks World 2009 (Monday, 1:30pm) on FEA.  The title of the presentation is “A Case Study in Analysis:  Verifying Strain Gauge Testing with SW Simulation.”   The purpose of this presentation is to describe the methods we used to correlate a customer’s strain gauge testing work to the analysis performed.

The analysis work uses sensors, surfaces, mixed mesh, contacts and other aspects of the SolidWorks Simulation Software to correlate results.  The presentation also provides insight into common learning opportunities that newer users experience and how to prevent them.

After SolidWorks World 2009, look for the presentation to be placed on the website for download.