One of our users has requested that Flow Simulation Remote Solver be setup for use with their SOLIDWORKS 2025 SP5.0 client. The documentation listed here 

https://www.goengineer.com/blog/how-to-install-solidworks-flow-simulation-remote-solver

mentions that this may be done without activation on the remote system (there is currently a locally hosted SolidNetWork License Manager on this network that is in use) though it does not appear that SOLIDWORKS 2025 SP5.0 or Flow Simulation can be installed on the remote system through Installation Manager without entry of a serial. The user that has requested this has an active installation of the same service pack on their workstation and is currently able to checkout licenses from the SolidNetWork license manager. What steps would need to be taken in order to provide them access to this, or is this service no longer available on this version of SOLIDWORKS/Flow Simulation?

Thanks

If you have a license of Simulation Professional or Premium and are a SOLIDWORKS Subscription customer, you will have access to the SOLIDWORKS Materials Web Portal.  The Portal is a collection of materials spanning four databases such as the Ticona and Invista databases.

We can search for and find the desired material and import it into the SOLIDWORKS Materials database for further use in Simulation.

To access the Materials Web Portal, while in a simulation study, edit the material to access the SOLIDWORKS Materials Database.

In the SOLIDWORKS Materials database, click the link at the lower left-hand corner of the window and select “SOLIDWORKS Materials Web Portal.”

The following popup will display introducing the Web Portal.

Your default web browser will now display the Materials Web Portal. 

Now use the filters and search for the desired material by selecting the Locate Materials button shown on the above screehsot.  You also need to select one of the four databases.

In the search results hover over the results until you have found the desired material and select in the highlighted red region.

The material webpage will open in a separate window.  You may then hit the download button.

A subsequent download confirmation screen will appear with a download button to initiate the download and show directions on how to add the material to the SOLIDWORKS Materials database after the download is complete.

I ran a frequency analysis for an assembly. From what I read, the first 6 harmonics should be zero (or very close to zero) because the solver calculates the rigid body motions. Well, in my case the first 4 harmonics are very close to zero, but the fifth = 5.5 Hz & the sixth = 17.2 Hz. The 7th is 30 Hz (which maybe the first harmonic to consider).

My question: are these normal values for the fifth and the sixth? and why are they not very close to Zero?

Below is an exploration I made so we can examine velocity results across a gap.  See the difference between a small gap that is meshed with one cell versus two cells across the gap:

At two cells we can see a gradient versus at one cell, the gap is still being respected however there is no data regarding a gradient across the gap.

If the gap is of particular interest, recall the best practice is to have 5-7 cells across the gap.  Below we show some results where 5 cells and 9 cells are sampled across the same gap.

We can see that qualitatively speaking, the results show a consistent velocity gradient.  The gradient should not change even if more cells are applied in the region.  As we go from 5 cells to 9 cells across the gap, we will start to see the actual maximum velocity begin to converge.  This was done without the help of velocity engineering goals.  This will be greatly helped by applying the appropriate velocity Engineering Goals for your project as well.

You can import the material assignments from your SOLIDWORKS CAD model over to your current Flow Simulation Project by using the "Import Data from Model" utility.  When in a Flow Simulation Project right click on the Solid Materials folder in the Flow Simulation Design Tree and Select "Import Data from Model."

The lower bottom half of the UI will display the Import Data from Model Utility.  Select the "Solid Materials" Icon from the toolbar and review all the parts and their materials that can be imported from the Material column.  De-select any unwanted materials.  Once you reviewed the Material column click the "Import" button on the far left of the UI to assign a Solid Material feature for each of the parts found using the utility.

Close the utility and review all the created Solid Materials features in your Project Tree.

This utility can not only import material assignments, it can also import Volume Heat Sources as well as Printed Circuit Board features form the Electronic Cooling Module.

• Displacement remains almost constant
• Wind speed (LPF) oscillates up and down
• The analysis continues to a descending branch

A representative example is attached.


I suspect this is related to snap-back instability caused by local member buckling and load redistribution, which the Riks method captures through non-monotonic equilibrium paths.

 

My questions

1. Is this behavior physically meaningful (progressive/local instability), or does it indicate a numerical issue?
2. Is such zig-zag behavior expected in Static, Riks for lattice structures experiencing snap-back?
3. For fragility/capacity assessment, is it acceptable to use the upper envelope or peak capacity, while acknowledging this behavior?

A selection set is a set of pre-selected entities in your SOLIDWORKS model.  Items such as a group of faces, edges, points, or a combination of entities can be saved to be used later when creating a feature when your working in CAD in SOLIDWORKS.  To create a section set simply CTRL-Select a set of enties on your model (I've chosen some faces below) and right click in the graphics area and select "Save Selection-New Selection set" from the right-click menu.

This will add a new line item that can be selected later in your feature manager design tree under a folder called "Selectoin Sets."  Below you can see that I've expanded the feature tree and the selection sets folder.  Once I select the selection set I've created, it will automatically highlight the pre-packaged entities on the model.

When you are in a feature in SOLIDWORKS or a Simulation product you can simply navigate to the design tree and select the grouping of entities of your choice to populate the selection set box.  See the example below.

In SOLIDWORKS Simulation this can be useful if you are adding a boundary condition to many small annoying faces such as a convection coefficient feature or similar.  I've also used this when selecting hidden edges or faces on a housing when applying interactions.  It makes it much easier to select the selection set instead of exploding the model with the exploded view tool or hiding and showing different components to make a selection. In SOLIDWORKS Flow simulation this is useful in a similar way when you are applying boundary conditions to many faces or a surface heat source or a similar feature. 

I hope this helps some of you out there!

***

Hi
I want to make a simulation of deflection.
How to make the top cylinder press on the bar in the middle for example 10 mm?

If you've never enabled this tool before you will be prompted to enter a product code. 

These codes can be obtained form the My.solidworks.com website as long as your license is on subscription with a reseller.  Keep SOLIDWORKS and the popup window open and click on the link and loginto the my.solidworks.com website.  If you've never gone to the website you will need to create a login (don't worry, its free).  

Once you login you can obtain your product code.

Simply copy the code and paste it back at the popup window in SOLIDWOKRS and you'll be ready to do some simulation!

If this is a preliminary result and in an area that is not of interest in particular, then it is acceptable to take the RMS Von Mises Stress value of the probed region.

If this is an area of interest then it is a best practice to round off the sharp edge or create a fillet feature to apply around in the corner and take the reading from the new region.  Below we can see the sharp corner eliminated and the reading is comparable to the RMS value from the sharp corner.  This is a more accurate reading as we have removed the source of the singularity entirely.  Results are comparable at 105 MPa with an RMS value on a sharp corner versus below, the maximum stress is 102 MPa with the sharp eliminated.

The main way we process designs is by simplification.  We get rid of features that we feel will not participate significantly in the response of the model and/or will take significant calculation resources for very little value or insight in our results.  There is a model "Simplify" feature at the part level in SOLIDWORKS that facilitates this process.  The end result is a model that is created that can be used for your simulation projects.   

I will share two additional strategies used in SOLIDWORKS to simplify your models, you may use the above simplify feature to remove features or you may choose to do it manually by deleting or suppressing features.  There is no wrong way to go about this, the choice is totally personal.

The first strategy is to do a SOLIDWORKS Pack and Go.  This tool is located from the main File menu at the top right corner of SOLIDWORKS.  Use pack and go to create a separate copy of your family of files.  I recommend you add a prefix or a suffix to your files so that you can ensure that there will be no cross-referencing that can happen with your original file set.  Once you have your copy of the files you can begin to simplify your model by deleting or suppressing features.  This strategy is attractive as it keeps the original file set alone as a reference.

The second strategy uses SOLIDWORKS Configurations.  Perhaps at your company you cannot create additional copies of your file set, the next best choice is to simplify the model in a separate configuration.  Configurations are just a different version of the model that can be managed from within the same SOLIDWORKS file where you can suppress or add additional features within the same part or assembly file.  They can then be called out later in other subassemblies or top-level assemblies.

After you have finished creating your part file, simply create a second configuration, you can name it "Simplified" or "FEA" or something similar.  Next navigate over to the FeatureManager Design Tree of the part and begin to suppress all the features you do not want to participate in the simulation.  Repeat this process on all the other parts you need.  Once you are finished with the parts open the assembly and create a new configuration at this level.  You can also call it "Simplified" or something similar and activate this Simplified configuration.

Lastly, go to all your other components and activate the "Simplified" configuration. 

In the end you will have a preprocessed model ready for any Simulation study or project in the SOLIDWORKS ecosystem!

In my current setup, I defined a hinged pin on one side (right). On the other side (left), I used a reference plane to restrict vertical displacement. This lets the left side move, but it does not rotate. I also tried adding a floor under the left side or modeling an actual pin as an assembly, but then the simulation does not reach equilibrium due to large displacement, even with nonlinear analysis.

Any advice on possible ways to set this up would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Kraig

I work for a control valve company and there are many times I'm asked for a flow characteristic (open the valve and plot it vs flow coefficient (aka Cv, Cv = Vol Flow (GPM) * (1/(pressure in (psia) - pressure out (psia)))^(1/2)) so it's a pretty simple equation in general that my world uses for assessing how much "stuff" you can get through a valve. Then we plot it vs degrees open and get a curve, which we use to evaluate how well the valve will control. 

The curve is nearly perfect every time, minor corrections but in general if I plot % open vs % Cv it's great. However, the actual numbers, like quantitatively if I just run the max Cv through a valve, it's ALWAYS underestimated when compared to actual flow lab testing.

I have a hoss of a CFD machine (24 cores x 2 processors (48 cores), 5.2GHz, 128GB Ram, all SSD drives) so I can mesh it to millions of cells and use local meshing on valve inner components without much issue.

I usually define an inlet pressure and outlet pressure and then let the CFD sort the volumetric flow. I always make a goal for inlet flow and outlet flow and insure they match with an equation goal (divide them and make sure it reaches 1 or very very close to it) I never have branching lines, a simple inlet and outlet pipe cover. 

Can someone offer me advice. I'm planning on paying for a training with an expert to sort this once I have several clean examples for them to use. I just was hoping someone could assist here. 

This limit includes the folder path, file name, study name, and the temporary and result file names and their paths. If the total character count exceeds this limit, SOLIDWORKS will likely return an error and fail to run the analysis.

To resolve this issue, consider reducing the file path length of the study you’re trying to run. One simple solution is to move the folder you're working in to a location with a shorter file path.

Below is a link to a site that offers additional solutions to this issue. Also attached is a spreadsheet where you can copy and paste your existing file path into a cell to estimate the character count. Note: The file path you paste into the spreadsheet should not include file extensions (e.g., .sldprt) or the paths/names of the temporary and result files.

How To Fix ‘Filename Is Too Long’ Issue In Windows

Character Count.xlsx

It is sitting on a plate of 4140 HR steel 1/2" x 42" x 96" (centered)

The 4140 plate is attached to 6 bearings.  So the bearings area would be fixed.  The area where the block is, how do I figure the force.  It is not 3800lbs every where, but spread across the area of 35" x 72"

If you have any advice or recommendation - I look forward to it !

Thanks !

Answer: No linear static analysis in SOLIDWORKS Simulation does not support material Harding. Nonlinear static analysis does. 

One reason for this is because linear static only allows the isotropic material model while nonlinear material properties. Nonlinear analysis on the other hand allows for several different nonlinear material models including Plasticity - von Mises which allows for the Hardening Factor material property no available in linear static studies. 

Another reason for this is that linear static simulations are steady state only and do not allow force loads to change. Nonlinear analysis on the other and allows for time based simulations and does allow for a specific command to turn on and off at different times. 

Attached is a SOLIDWORKS 2023 model of a bike crank arm that you can download and see the differences between Nonlinear analysis and Static analysis when it comes to material hardening. 

Bike Crank Arm.SLDPRT

Answer: If you purchase Flow Simulation with the electronics cooling model then yes you can use joule heating in SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation. 

Open the Electrical Source option and with this tool you can use DC Current or DC Voltage. You must put in an input face and an output face with these two faces connected with solid material. There can be no gaps. 

If you have the Electronics Cooling model then you can download the attached SOLIDWORKS 2023 model to see a template of how to setup a SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation Joule Heating example. 

Joule Heating.zip

Hi, this is the structure of a chair. The material is alloy steel. I applied a force of 264.56 Ibs to see how much the structure would deform, but it's more deformed than it should be. Did I make a mistake by not placing the fixed points where they should go? Am I applying the force incorrectly? Did I do the mesh wrong? Or what am I doing wrong? Because I don't think it's normal for it to deform this much.

What I want in this simulation is to visualize the flow flowing through the holes (that represent the valves) in the determined sequence. How do I do this?