CSWP Simulation & Design Validation Tools 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In SOLIDWORKS Simulation, how is a 'Remote Load' different from a standard force applied directly to a face?
- A Remote Load can only be applied to assembly components, not parts
- A Remote Load transfers force and moment from a point in space to a face without modeling the connecting geometry (Correct answer)
- A Remote Load automatically scales with mesh density
- A Remote Load requires a rigid connector definition before use
Correct answer: A Remote Load transfers force and moment from a point in space to a face without modeling the connecting geometry
A Remote Load applies forces and moments from a specified remote location to a surface, simulating the effect of unmodeled hardware or attachment points.
Question 2: What is the role of a 'Bonded' contact set in a SOLIDWORKS Simulation assembly study?
- It allows sliding between mating faces while preventing separation
- It rigidly joins two touching faces so they act as if welded or glued (Correct answer)
- It defines a frictional interface between two surfaces
- It applies a pretension load across a bolted joint
Correct answer: It rigidly joins two touching faces so they act as if welded or glued
Bonded contact merges the degrees of freedom of nodes on touching faces, simulating a perfectly glued or welded connection with no relative motion.
Question 3: Which SOLIDWORKS tool is used to check whether a design meets a specified stress limit without running a full FEA simulation?
- Design Checker
- SimulationXpress (Correct answer)
- DFMXpress
- SolidWorks Utilities — Geometry Analysis
Correct answer: SimulationXpress
SimulationXpress performs a simplified linear static FEA to check stress and displacement against material yield strength for single-body parts.
Question 4: In SOLIDWORKS Simulation, what does activating 'Soft Springs' in a static study prevent?
- Excessive mesh distortion under large deformation
- Rigid body motion that causes the stiffness matrix to be singular (Correct answer)
- Stress singularities at sharp re-entrant corners
- Thermal buckling in thin-walled structures
Correct answer: Rigid body motion that causes the stiffness matrix to be singular
Soft Springs add weak artificial springs to ground, stabilizing the model when restraints are insufficient to fully prevent rigid body motion and avoid a singular stiffness matrix.
Question 5: When validating a weldment frame in SOLIDWORKS Simulation, which element type is most commonly used to reduce computational cost?
- Solid (tetrahedral) elements
- Shell elements
- Beam elements (Correct answer)
- Mixed solid-shell elements
Correct answer: Beam elements
Beam elements model slender structural members efficiently by representing them as 1D elements with cross-section properties, greatly reducing mesh size and solve time.
Question 6: In Flow Simulation, what is the purpose of setting an 'Initial Condition' before running a calculation?
- To define the fluid material properties at the inlet boundary
- To provide a starting point for the iterative solver, improving convergence speed (Correct answer)
- To specify the turbulence model for the entire domain
- To assign a time-varying load history for transient analysis
Correct answer: To provide a starting point for the iterative solver, improving convergence speed
Initial Conditions set approximate values for pressure, temperature, and velocity throughout the fluid domain, helping the iterative solver converge faster to the final solution.
Question 7: What does the 'List Selected' feature in SOLIDWORKS Simulation results allow an engineer to do?
- Filter which load cases are included in a combined result
- Export tabular result data for selected nodes or elements to a report (Correct answer)
- Select multiple mesh control regions simultaneously
- List all contacts defined in the simulation tree
Correct answer: Export tabular result data for selected nodes or elements to a report
List Selected extracts and displays result values for chosen nodes or elements in a sortable table that can be exported for further analysis or documentation.
CSWP Simulation & Design Validation Tools 5
In SOLIDWORKS Simulation, how is a 'Remote Load' different from a standard force applied directly to a face?