MJ Engineering Blog

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.