Graphics Systems SolidNotes

SolidWorks World Tuesday

This morning the general session featured more excellent speakers. Dr. Don Norman of Northwestern University won the Franklin Medal in 2006 (past award winners include Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Stephan Hawking) and he's quite famous in design circles (just Google him and you'll get a ton of hits). He gave some great examples of why design needs to be for the user and not for the designer. Pick up one of his books to learn about his philosophy in depth as I can't really do it justice :).

Dr. Robert Ballard is most famous for finding the HMS Titanic, but he is one of the world's foremost oceanographers; if you've seen many Discovery and Science Channel shows related to undersea exploration, you will recognize him instantly (he was also the guy who did the "real science" segment at the end of every episode of the old Seaquest: DSV sci-fi TV show). What I took most from his talk was that by 8th grade, you've either got a new scientist/enginner or you've lost them. Both of my brothers are classically-trained teachers and I have heard the same thing from them many times -- middle school is where personality and behaviors are set in. I resolved during this talk to take a more active role in somehow reaching out to kids in that age group, both as a professional in the engineering world and also as an amateur scientist (astronomer, in this case) to spark real interest in the science and engineering. I have a few ideas but I'd love to hear about any you may have!

One tool that SolidWorks Corporation has developed that I think will be useful is SolidWorks for iPod. No, it's not a software solution; it's a website that has cool videos, renderings, and technical tidbits that are made for the iPod. SolidWorks thinks this is such a great idea that they gave every regular attendee of SolidWorks World an iPod Nano loaded with this content! See www.solidworks.com/ipod to get content for your own iPod.

SolidWorks World Monday

After yesterday's debacle in Green Bay, I was happy to turn my attention full-time to all things SolidWorks. This morning's guest speakers were very good. Danny Forster of TV's "Build It Bigger" gave a humorous and interesting talk tying together style and engineering from an architectural perspective. Theo Jansen of Holland is an artist who makes what he calls "beach creatures" that are mechanical automatons that are powered by nothing more than the wind. Google him and you'll find some fascinating articles and video on his work -- really thought-provoking!

Being from the original Dairy State, I did find it humorous when, at this morning's breakfast, they ran out of milk for the stacks and stacks of cereal displayed on the tables. I guess California cows may be happy, but not very productive compared to Wisconsin cows!

3DVia is a hot ticket on the showroom floor. This is an awesome solution for creating truly interactive documentation for tech pubs, as well as mockups of super-large assemblies. We'll be showing it at Graphics Systems in the near future! Take a look at the information on www.solidworks.com.

Interesting and Insightful COSMOSWorks answers, Part II

In Part I of our multi-partseries on COSMOSWorks Q-n-A, we covered three questions pertaining to Frequency Studies.  This time around, I'd like to handle a few more questions involving Buckling studies and "soft springs."

1. What can COSMOSM or GeoStar handle for Buckling that COSMOSWorks can't? The good news is that all products can handle both linear and non-linear buckling scenarios. The user must choose the correct material model for each case.
2. Can Slenderness Ratios and Euler Numbers be retrieved from the results of a Buckling study? COSMOSWorks does not report back these values but they can be calculated by hand.
3. When "soft springs" are used to stabilize a model, can the reaction forces on these "springs" be retrieved?  No; the soft springs are additional qualities to the stiffness calcs being performed. But with all static studies ran with COSMOSWorks, the user can retrieve and list the reaction forces and moments for selected items or the entire model. This is a great, quick check to ensure that your model is balanced and truly.... static. (Right-mouse click the Results folder and select List Reaction Forces)

In our next installment, we'll wrap things up with questions involving meshing, pin connectors, and beam elements.

Interesting and Insightful COSMOSWorks answers, Part I

We here at Graphics Systems regularly come across COSMOSWorks related questions whether it be during training or everyday Technical Support.  So for the next couple of posts, I will attempt to provide Interesting and Insightful answers to a few of the more interesting questions.

We'll begin with three questions related to Frequency Studies.  Frequency studies provide the user with the natural frequency response of a system and with these frequencies, engineers can design around them... hopefully avoiding the dreaded RESONANCE FREQUENCY with such components as motors.

1. Which equations to the Direct Sparse and FFEPlus solvers use to find eigenvalues?  The answer also applies to Bucking studies (but that's another post). Both solvers use the following equation to calculate resultant structural stiffness:

   [K_E + λ_iK_S][φ_i] = 0; K's of E is the elastic stiffness matrix, K's of S is the stress stiffness matrix, lambda of i are eigenvalues and phi of i are your eigenvectors.

2. Are modal participation values calculated? Mass participation factors can be retrieved from the study by right-mouse clicking the Results folder for the study in question.

3. Are the units for gravity calculated in "G's" or m/v? With all studies, unless gravity is a boundary condition set-up by the analyst, gravity is not calculated in. Should gravity be included as a boundary condition, the system of units to describe gravity are the same for any other load or restrain: English, Metric, SI. (I prefer m/s^2 personally) [on the first pass, I had the wrong units; sorry, brain fart]

Thanks for the questions, folks. And keep them coming.  In the next few posts, I'll deal more with Buckling, some items pertaining to mesh quality, and even one or two questions regarding "soft springs."  Stay tuned!