Defining Goals

Define goals to specify your objective functions for the Optimization Design Study. (Not available in SOLIDWORKS Standard and SOLIDWORKS Professional.)

  1. On the Variable View or Table View tab of the design study, in Goals section, do one of the following:
    • Select a predefined sensor from the list.
    • Select Add Sensor, define a sensor, and select the newly defined sensor from the list.
    The sensor name appears in the Goals section.
  2. For the goal, if you defined multiple studies of the same type, select the simulation study to run and track the value of the sensor.
  3. For the goal, select one of the following:
    • Minimize.
    • Maximize.
    • Is exactly. Type an exact value. For example, to find the optimal design that causes a 1mm deflection at the tip of a cantilever, type 1mm.
  4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to define additional goals.
  5. For multiple goals, type the weight of each goal, for example 5.
    The weight of a goal to optimize represents its relative importance. The higher the weight of the goal, the more important it is to optimize that goal. The program modifies the final weight of the goal as: (weight of the goal you type)/(sum of weights of all goals you type).