Overview

This guide describes the key design performance issues facing machine designers and manufacturers, and identies the
benets of using SolidWorks

analysis sofware in the product development cycle. SolidWorks sofware can be applied to
almost any machine design eld, from automation tooling to wrapping machines, to analyze a broad range of concerns. Its
powerful analysis typesstatic, motion, thermal, vibration, uid-ow, and nonlinearwill ensure that your product meets
design requirements and is reliable in the eld.
ANALYSIS GUIDE FOR MACHINE
DESIGNERS
W H I T E P A P E R
Introduction
Analysis and simulation sofware 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 eld, 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.
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 sofware 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 specic 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 litle time to produce multiple
prototypes and use trial and error to gain a beter 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 2
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 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 Guide for Machine Designers 3
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
Industrial Food Machinery
Packaging Equipment
Electromechanical Systems: heating
Printed Circuit Boards: semiconductors, heat sinks, MEMS
Cooling Systems: fans, motors, air ows
Electronic Systems: antennas, transmiters, switches
Automation Tooling
Aerating Machines, for beverages
Bag Opening, Filling, and Closing Machines
Botling Machinery: washing, sterilizing, lling, capping, and labeling
Bread-wrapping Machines
Carton-packing Machines
Label Moisteners, industrial type
Labeling Machinery, industrial type
Wrapping Machines
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers 4
Using computational model and analysis
sofware to perform what if evaluations saves
time and money and can help to improve design
performance.
Scope of analysis
Design verication/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 sofware system, the standard for 3D design, is tightly
integrated with all major CAD sofware. This means that engineers can use
SolidWorks analysis sofware directly on the CAD model and do not need to
remodel designs to take advantage of analysis technology.
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.
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers 5
Companies that use analysis to address these
issues at the design state develop a clear
advantage over their competitors.
Powerful analysis typesstatic, motion, thermal, vibration,
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 eort. Thermal eects of
the heat-producing components upon the rest of the systems can be dicult 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 sofware 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 sofware 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.
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 deections in the device and compare it against allowable levels
to predict failure. SolidWorks Simulation has the ability to analyze shells using
SolidWorks sofware 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 cuting 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 6
Using SolidWorks Simulation analysis sofware,
an engineer can simulate the natural frequencies
of a part or assembly.
Thermal analysis is critically important in machine design. Managing
temperature, whether its of printed circuit boards, mechanical devices, or of
uidic systems can be an important design challenge that an engineer must
overcome. SolidWorks Simulation analysis sofware can perform steady-
state or transient thermal analysis on parts or assemblies. Afer meshing the
design, the designer sets any relevant constraints, then sets power or heat
ux conditions associated with a geometrical feature of the model. Because
component material properties include thermal conductivity, coecient of
thermal expansion, and heat capacity, the designer gets a realistic prediction
of temperature distributions under prescribed loads and operating conditions.
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 aect
performance of surrounding electronic and mechanical devices. Optimal
performance, with a minimal amount of adverse eects 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 deections 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 deection in certain areas
or improve performance. Random vibration analysis can also help engineers
stien electrical systems that are designed to survive earthquakes and
represent a more cost-eective approach than conducting physical shake
tests. Analysis can be used to minimize frequency and vibration to minimize
the perturbations eects on the system performance.
Figure 7: Neumag improves nozzle design with SolidWorks Flow Simulation.
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers 7
Large machinery generally has large heat
sources such as power supplies and motors that
require active cooling.
Fluid-ow analysis has a number of applications in the machine design
domain. Fluid-ow 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 uid-ow properties. Fluidic systems such as hydraulics
can also be modeled and their designs evaluated. This analysis can be used
in the design process of uidic components such as nozzles, valvings, pump
systems, and lubrication systems. Whatever a manufacturers analytical needs,
SolidWorks Flow Simulation oers high-powered computational ow dynamics
(CFD) analysis for understanding the impact of uid ow on temperature in
electrical systems.
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 dierent factors that may
cause a device to fail. Nonlinear analysis tools are eective for analyzing static
and dynamic problems with geometric and material nonlinearity, hyperelasticity,
creep, thermo-plasticity, and viscoelasticity. SolidWorks Simulation Premium
nonlinear analysis sofware 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 atachment,
interconnection, and encapsulation methods. Designers require that analysis run on
their parts, subassemblies, and full assemblies. These assemblies can be aected
by heat, pressure, vibration, impacts, and electromagnetic elds at all levels of
the design.
Figure 9: Chuck designed by Speedgrip Chuck Inc.
Analysis Guide for Machine Designers 8
SolidWorks Simulation assembly gap/contact
analysis allows you to simulate various real-life
conditions for large machines.
SolidWorks Simulation enables engineers to simulate all of these behaviors by
allowing for the analysis of small or large CAD assemblies. The sofware allows
engineers to assign dierent materials to dierent 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 eects on surrounding components studied. This allows for eective isolation
systems to be developed early in the design cycle.
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 rst 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 eectively conveying design information, so
that designers can nd 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.
Collaboration tools oer new ways for
machinery designers to work more eectively
with other members of the development team.
Design communication and collaboration tools
Section plots allow you to see simulation results inside the part and
not just on the surface.
Collaboration tools oer new ways for machinery designers to work more
eectively with other members of the development team. The ability to share
design resources over the Internet benets 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 les
- AVI les
- SolidWorks eDrawings

les
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 eld, 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.
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
Dassault Systmes
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