Overview This guide describes the key design performance issues facing machine designers and manufacturers, and identifies the benefits of using SolidWorks analysis software in the product development cycle. SolidWorks software can be applied to almost any machine design field, from automation tooling to wrapping machines, to analyze a broad range of concerns. Its powerful analysis typesstatic, motion, thermal, vibration, fluid-flow, and nonlinearwill ensure that your product meets design requirements and is reliable in the field.
Introduction Analysis and simulation software is an indispensable tool in the development of large-scale machinery. These tools allow the developer to evaluate designs early in the design cycle, determine causes of premature failures in the field, quickly explore design changes aimed at reducing cost and weight, and determine the products factor of safety. Use of analysis tools is of particular value to machine designers due to the size and complexity of the systems they are developing. Analysis tools can identify design issues that may elude a designers review simply because of the dynamic nature of machinerys many moving parts.
Analysis tools can identify design issues that
may elude a designers review simply because of the dynamic nature of machinerys many moving parts.
Figure 1: Inner arm of robot designed by Fanuc Robotics
The unyielding demands upon machinery manufacturers by customers and the
market to create systems that are cheaper, more reliable, and more productive necessitate that companies that wish to remain successful utilize all the tools available to them. These analysis tools reduce product development costs through a reduction of late engineering changes. They ensure products reach the market promptly, allowing the product to capture the largest piece of the market possible. Finally, it allows engineers to experiment with materials and designs that can result in products of minimal weight and cost. Analysis software enables engineers to simulate design performance and identify and address potential design problems before prototyping and production.
Analysis at the forefront of machine design product development
Regardless of the specific application, machine designers are under pressure from their customers: increase reliability and longevity; be quicker to market with new, improved products; reduce product weight and cost; and increase productivity. Working in this type of environment, engineers have little time to produce multiple prototypes and use trial and error to gain a better understanding of the physical behavior of their designs. Yet, that information is vital for producing innovative, high-quality products.
Figure 2: Fanuc Robotics takes full advantage of solid modeler in SolidWorks Simulation.
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers
Analysis tools help machine designers understand the physical behavior of their designs quickly without resorting to expensive prototypes and physical tests that extend the product design cycle. Analysis tools can substantially reduce the number of ECOs, missed deadlines due to redesigns late in the design cycle, and costly redesigns at manufacturing time. All of these markedly decrease development costs and time-to-market. Further, these tools increase communication between design, sales, marketing, manufacturing, and the customer through their easy-to-read and -understand graphical results. Application areas Production Equipment: Hallmark Cards, food production Industrial Robots and Robotic Systems: design optimization, failure analysis
Analysis tools help machine designers
understand the physical behavior of their designs quickly without resorting to expensive prototypes and physical tests that extend the product design cycle.
Industrial Food Machinery
Packaging Equipment Electromechanical Systems: heating Printed Circuit Boards: semiconductors, heat sinks, MEMS Cooling Systems: fans, motors, air flows Electronic Systems: antennas, transmitters, switches Automation Tooling Aerating Machines, for beverages Bag Opening, Filling, and Closing Machines Bottling Machinery: washing, sterilizing, filling, capping, and labeling Bread-wrapping Machines Carton-packing Machines Label Moisteners, industrial type Labeling Machinery, industrial type Wrapping Machines
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers
Scope of analysis Design verification/validation: Will this design work? Will this design behave
the way I think it will?
Relative merit: Which of these candidate designs is the best? How can
I weed out and eliminate poor-functioning designs?
Proof of concept: Testing radical new concepts without producing prototypes
Durability and reliability: Fatigue/failure analysis, drop tests, shake
simulations
Tight integration with 3D CAD
The SolidWorks 3D CAD software system, the standard for 3D design, is tightly integrated with all major CAD software. This means that engineers can use SolidWorks analysis software directly on the CAD model and do not need to remodel designs to take advantage of analysis technology. Using computational model and analysis software to perform what if evaluations saves time and money and can help to improve design performance.
Figure 3: Hallmark Cards designs card-manufacturing machinery using SolidWorks Simulation.
What if studies A clear advantage of performing virtual testing using computer simulations over physical testing, beyond the cost and time savings, is the ability to quickly compare many designs incorporating different materials, part geometries, assembly configurations, subsystems, and more. Using analysis to conduct what if studies what if I tried this material, or what if I used this type of mechanismcan help engineers identify the best material and mechanical design for a particular function. Using computational model and analysis software to perform what if evaluations saves time and money and can help to improve design performance. By coupling analysis studies with Configuration Management, the designer can quickly converge on the best-form design solution over many degrees of freedom.
Figure 4: Modular and custom air handlers are ideal products for analysis because they must be able to heat, cool, humidify, and dehumidify air as well as filter particles.
fluid-flow, nonlinear Machine designers must work with systems of amazing complexity and variability. The kinematics and dynamics of all of the systems moving parts and their potential for interference requires a great amount of design effort. Thermal effects of the heat-producing components upon the rest of the systems can be difficult to predict and design around. Vibration and other structural issues can lead to part failures, poor performance, and other operational issues. Companies that use analysis to address these issues at the design state develop a clear advantage over their competitors. SolidWorks analysis software helps to ensure that these considerations are addressed early in the product development cycle, enabling manufacturers to accelerate time-to-market and reduce development costs while producing higher-quality products with fewer warranty issues. Using a range of analysis technologies, SolidWorks software helps engineers to ensure that a products behavior will be within design limits, reliable, and free of the risk of thermal, electromagnetic, or stress-induced failures.
Companies that use analysis to address these
issues at the design state develop a clear advantage over their competitors.
Figure 5: Calculating the critical forces of a roller on a sheeter head takes just minutes for Casa Herrera.
Static analysis is a tool that empowers the machine designer to avoid
catastrophic immediate or long-term failure modes and determine if redesign
of one or more of the core elements is necessary. Designers can study the stresses or deflections in the device and compare it against allowable levels to predict failure. SolidWorks Simulation has the ability to analyze shells using SolidWorks software surfaces and by extracting mid surfaces of thin-walled structures, particularly useful in machines that incorporate sheet metal in their designs. Through static analysis, designers can optimize geometries, minimize weight and material usage, and determine the factor of safety built into each of their machines.
Motion analysis is also extremely valuable in the development of machinery
in that machines are, by their nature, extremely complex, dynamic assemblies.
Running motion analysis allows designers to perform virtual testing before manufacturing physical prototypes, saving time and money during the iterative design cycle. Changes prior to cutting metal are far cheaper and quicker to enact. Motion analysis allows the designer to learn more about the machinery in the concept phase and perform dynamic interference detection prior to building engineering models.
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers
Thermal analysis is critically important in machine design. Managing
temperature, whether its of printed circuit boards, mechanical devices, or of
fluidic systems can be an important design challenge that an engineer must overcome. SolidWorks Simulation analysis software can perform steadystate or transient thermal analysis on parts or assemblies. After meshing the design, the designer sets any relevant constraints, then sets power or heat flux conditions associated with a geometrical feature of the model. Because component material properties include thermal conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion, and heat capacity, the designer gets a realistic prediction of temperature distributions under prescribed loads and operating conditions. Using SolidWorks Simulation analysis software, an engineer can simulate the natural frequencies of a part or assembly.
Figure 6: End-of-arm automation tooling designed by Pushcorp, Inc.
Vibration analysis is valuable in many types of machinery products. Many
have motors, pumps, and other vibration sources that can adversely affect performance of surrounding electronic and mechanical devices. Optimal performance, with a minimal amount of adverse effects on these components, requires an understanding of the natural frequencies at which a component or assembly will vibrate and the impact of any stresses or deflections that may occur. Using SolidWorks Simulation, an engineer can simulate the natural frequencies of a part or assembly and use this information to modify the design or materials used to avoid resonance and deflection in certain areas or improve performance. Random vibration analysis can also help engineers stiffen electrical systems that are designed to survive earthquakes and represent a more cost-effective approach than conducting physical shake tests. Analysis can be used to minimize frequency and vibration to minimize the perturbations effects on the system performance.
Figure 7: Neumag improves nozzle design with SolidWorks Flow Simulation.
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers
Fluid-flow analysis has a number of applications in the machine design
domain. Fluid-flow properties play a large role in heat transfer analysis. Large machinery generally has large heat sources, such as power supplies and motors, that require active cooling. Convective and conjugative heat transfer are dependent on fluid-flow properties. Fluidic systems such as hydraulics can also be modeled and their designs evaluated. This analysis can be used in the design process of fluidic components such as nozzles, valvings, pump systems, and lubrication systems. Whatever a manufacturers analytical needs, SolidWorks Flow Simulation offers high-powered computational flow dynamics (CFD) analysis for understanding the impact of fluid flow on temperature in electrical systems.
Large machinery generally has large heat
sources such as power supplies and motors that require active cooling.
Nonlinear analysis gives electronics and electrical product designers the ability
to evaluate product performance within a complex, 3D-simulated environment,
giving them a far more accurate determination of the different factors that may cause a device to fail. Nonlinear analysis tools are effective for analyzing static and dynamic problems with geometric and material nonlinearity, hyperelasticity, creep, thermo-plasticity, and viscoelasticity. SolidWorks Simulation Premium nonlinear analysis software can also analyze nonlinear contact problems involving surface interactions of models with or without friction.
Figure 8: Cyclonic Inertial Separator by David Rachels and engineering team.
Assembly analysis Large-scale assembly analysis is absolutely critical for machinery designers. Industrial machinery by its nature contains many complex subassemblies of many parts. As such, analysis on machine designs requires a wide range of attachment, interconnection, and encapsulation methods. Designers require that analysis run on their parts, subassemblies, and full assemblies. These assemblies can be affected by heat, pressure, vibration, impacts, and electromagnetic fields at all levels of the design.
Figure 9: Chuck designed by Speedgrip Chuck Inc.
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers
SolidWorks Simulation enables engineers to simulate all of these behaviors by
allowing for the analysis of small or large CAD assemblies. The software allows engineers to assign different materials to different parts of the assembly and specify how the components will interact with each other. SolidWorks Simulation assembly gap/contact analysis allows you to simulate various real-life conditions for large machines. Many of what in the past have been physical tests on large machines can now be moved to computer simulations. Drop tests, to ensure that shipping does not damage the machinery, can be performed during the design phase and easier, less costly changes can be made prior to physical prototyping and manufacturing. Thermal analysis can ensure that no components within the system become overheated and can aid in designing appropriate heating and cooling systems within the machinery. Sources of vibration within a system can be modeled and their effects on surrounding components studied. This allows for effective isolation systems to be developed early in the design cycle.
SolidWorks Simulation assembly gap/contact
analysis allows you to simulate various real-life conditions for large machines.
3D Visualization SolidWorks Simulation analysis tools enable analysis of machinery and large-scale industrial products at the component, assembly, and system levels. 3D visualization provides a designer with a first check of design intent, proper
operation, and aesthetics as the project develops.
3D CAD enables the designer to view a product design from all angles and
examine the internal parts of the product throughout the design process. This gives designers a clear and accurate review of parts and assemblies early in the design cycle.
3D visualization reduces communication and fabrication errors, saving
development time by more effectively conveying design information, so
that designers can find problems early in the design cycle.
Designers can view the product from all sides and look inside by hiding the
outer enclosure or other parts.
3D animations of simulations allow you to see how the machinery functions
in the real world.
Section plots allow you to see simulation results inside the part and not just
on the surface.
Figure 10: The Johnson Corporation designs systems for process industries.
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers
Design communication and collaboration tools
Section plots allow you to see simulation results inside the part and
not just on the surface.
Collaboration tools offer new ways for machinery designers to work more
effectively with other members of the development team. The ability to share design resources over the Internet benefits all machinery designers, from independent consultants to engineers in large multinational corporations.
SolidWorks Simulation analysis tools allow designers to share analysis
results in various formats such as:
- - - -
HTML reports of analysis results
VRML files AVI files SolidWorks eDrawings files
Conclusion Machinery manufacturers face relentless demands by customers and the market to create systems that are cheaper, more reliable, and more productive. Companies that wish to remain successful utilize all the tools available to them. With analysis and simulation tools, the developer can evaluate designs early in the design cycle, determine causes of premature failures in the field, quickly explore designs changes aimed at reducing cost and weight, and determine the products factor of safety. Analysis tools are particularly valuable to machine designers due to the size and complexity of the systems they are developing. SolidWorks simulation and analysis tools reduce product development costs, ensure products reach the market promptly, and allow engineers to experiment with materials and designs that can result in products of minimal weight and cost.
Dassault Systmes SolidWorks Corp. 300 Baker Avenue Concord, MA 01742 USA Phone: 1 800 693 9000 Outside the US: +1 978 371 5011 Email: info@solidworks.com www.solidworks.com
SolidWorks is a registered trademark of Dassault Systmes SolidWorks Corp. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. 2010 Dassault Systmes. All rights reserved. MKMACWPENG1210
Collaboration tools offer new ways for
machinery designers to work more effectively with other members of the development team.
