You can evaluate scenarios of your design by varying the material for selected bodies without performing optimization.
If you use the High Quality option, the program fully calculates the results for all scenarios. If you use the Fast Results option, the program selects certain scenarios to calculate fully. It interpolates the results for the rest of the scenarios.
Consider a design study with three discrete variables and one material variable:
| Variable |
Values |
|---|
| Width |
1,2 |
| Length |
4,5 |
| Height |
7,8 |
| Material |
steel, iron |
Based on the number of variables there are 16 potential design scenarios.
In general, if you define n variables with vn values for the nth variable, the program defines (v1 x v2 x ... x vn) design scenarios.
The design scenarios are:
| Design Scenarios for Group 1 |
Width (in) |
Length (in) |
Height (in) |
Material |
|---|
| 1 |
1 |
4 |
7 |
steel |
| 2 |
2 |
4 |
7 |
steel |
| 3 |
1 |
5 |
7 |
steel |
| 4 |
2 |
5 |
7 |
steel |
| 5 |
1 |
4 |
8 |
steel |
| 6 |
2 |
4 |
8 |
steel |
| 7 |
1 |
5 |
8 |
steel |
| 8 |
2 |
5 |
8 |
steel |
| Design Scenarios for Group 2 |
Width (in) |
Length (in) |
Height (in) |
Material |
|---|
| 9 |
1 |
4 |
7 |
iron |
| 10 |
2 |
4 |
7 |
iron |
| 11 |
1 |
5 |
7 |
iron |
| 12 |
2 |
5 |
7 |
iron |
| 13 |
1 |
4 |
8 |
iron |
| 14 |
2 |
4 |
8 |
iron |
| 15 |
1 |
5 |
8 |
iron |
| 16 |
2 |
5 |
8 |
iron |
The software creates groups from the scenarios with a common material variable: one group (scenarios 1-8) for steel and the second group (scenarios 9-16) for iron as a material variable.
For the High Quality option, results are fully calculated for all 16 scenarios. For the Fast Results option, the program selects certain scenarios to calculate fully from each group. It interpolates the results for the rest of the scenarios in the group. If there are only four or less scenarios in one group, the software calculates results for all scenarios.
If you add a second material parameter that sets a group of bodies to be silver and gold, the number of scenarios would increase to 32. In this case, there would be four groups with eight design scenarios in each group:
| Group |
First Material Variable |
Second Material Variable |
|---|
| 1 |
steel |
silver |
| 2 |
steel |
gold |
| 3 |
iron |
silver |
| 4 |
iron |
gold |
The scenarios with interpolated results are displayed in gray text on the Results View tab.
- All scenarios in the same interpolation group have the same material assignment for each body.
- A body cannot have two material assignments for a given scenario.