The HRS Blog – SolidWorks and CAMWorks

Often, when we’re working with SolidWorks Simulation users in training classes and technical support calls, we often hear a common question about SolidWorks Scenes and Lighting, and how they can affect the display of our Simulation Result plots. As many readers may already know, SolidWorks offers a myriad of options for Appearances and Scenes when viewing a model in the graphics area.

The Complete Uninstall of SolidWorks: some of you have done it and know the hassle; others don’t even know what it is. Fortunately for both groups, SolidWorks has greatly simplified the process. Here is the background: Similar to most Windows programs, a SolidWorks installation is not simply contained to a single location on the hard drive. The installation also creates files, folders, and registry entries throughout the computer. If you are experiencing serious issues with SolidWorks, you may need to completely uninstall the program and all associated files and registry keys since they may be the root cause of the problem.

A customer of ours, Jon from Weldco-Beales Manufacturing, recently came to us with question that reminded me of my Mechanical Engineering Statics class. His company designed a mechanism that clamped onto a tire, using a hydraulic cylinder to provide the clamping force. He wanted to know the relationship between the force being exerted by the hydraulic cylinder and the clamping force exerted on the tire. We as users should always question the results we get from an analysis. SolidWorks Simulation has technical papers which look at standard NAFEMS(National Agency for Finite Element Methods and Standards) problems and compares results, but often we want to verify the setup and results of OUR geometry, not a hypothetical NAFEMS problem. One way to do this is with hand calculations. For Jon, I wanted to take our hand calculations and compare them with what SolidWorks Simulation predicted.

When designing in SolidWorks, at times it may be beneficial to create parts that have more than one solid body, in applications like weldments, sheet metal, or mold tools. It may also be necessary to show how those parts go together using an exploded view. While it is possible to save the individual bodies as separate part files in an assembly and perform an exploded view there, it may be easier and quicker to perform the exploded view in the multi-body part.