Going bananas over Splits!

You may not think it's much but the fine folks over at SolidWorks, with every new release, try to squeeze in just a little more ease-of-use to make our everyday Simulation experience all the better.  Take for example the need to know ahead of time what faces need to be split in order to apply, correctly, loads or restraints. Bolt connectors can automatically split faces but what about a bearing load?

So what did SolidWorks do about this in 2009?  They added the ability to create the split feature on the fly, as you're creating the load or restraint. Here are a couple of screen images.

When applying the load or the restrain, select the Split tab and click "Create Sketch." Here I've placed a vertical sketch line on the outer, planar face of the cylindrical feature.

The face gets split as I exit the sketch.

As you toggle back to the first tab, SolidWorks uses the newly split face and allows you to place the load or retraint accordingly.  This saves you time and effort and this is why I like Simulation in SolidWorks 2009.