Running Studies

After assigning materials, defining loads and restraints, and meshing the model, you can run the study to calculate the results. If you run a study before meshing it, the software meshes the model and runs the study.

To run a study, right-click its icon in the Simulation study tree and select Run or click Run in the Simulation toolbar.

NOTE: When you run one or multiple Simulation studies, they run as background processes. Simulation continues to run in the background after the SolidWorks session is ended. When the simulation completes, results are stored in the designated directory.

To run all studies, click the down arrow on Run (Simulation CommandManager) and select Run All Studies.

You can move the pointer over the Simulation study tab of a running study to see its status.

Solvers

The software offers different solvers to handle different types and sizes of problems more efficiently. The solvers exploit a new technology for the solution of large systems of simultaneous equations to reduce solution time, disk space, and memory requirements.

The software offers the following options:

• Automatic: the software selects the Direct Sparse solver or the FFEPlus solver automatically.

• The Direct Sparse solver

• The FFEPlus solver (iterative)

The SolidWorks Simulation solvers are in many cases 100 times faster than conventional solvers.

You select the solver when defining the properties of a study. Both solvers should give similar answers provided that the same mesh is used. However, the performance and speed vary depending on the type and size of the problem. The two solvers are efficient for small problems. The FFEPlus solver is particularly efficient for large problems (over 300,000 degrees of freedom).

Solver Status

The Solver Status window appears when you run a study. In addition to progress information, it displays:

• Memory usage

• Elapsed time

• Study-specific information such as degrees of freedom, number of nodes, number of elements

• Solver information such as solver type

• Warnings

All static studies that use the FFEPlus (iterative) solver let you access the convergence plot and solver parameters. The convergence plot helps you visualize how the solution is converging. The solver parameters let you manipulate the solver iterations so that you can either improve accuracy or improve speed with less accurate results. You can use the solver's preset values or change:

• Maximum number of iterations

• Stopping threshold

To improve accuracy, decrease the stopping threshold value. In slowly converging situations, you can improve speed with less accurate results by increasing the stopping threshold value or decreasing the maximum number of iterations.

  After running analysis, you can view messages issued by the solver by right-clicking the Results folder and selecting Solver Messages. Message types include: number of nodes, solution time, errors, warnings, etc. Note that these are the same messages that appear in the window during analysis.

Refer to the Design Studies section for more information.