Simulations

The first time you enter the Stress Analysis Environment with a model, only a few commands are available, these are for creating a simulation and specifying global settings.

Create a simulation:

1. On the ribbon, click Stress Analysis tabManage panelCreate Simulation.
2. The Simulation Properties dialog box displays. Specify:
   • Simulation name
   • Design Objective
   • Simulation type and options, according to the type selection
     NoteIn this step you also specify whether motion loads from a dynamic simulation are used.
   • Contact tolerance and Default type
   • Model representations to use (Design View, Positional Representation, and Level of Detail)
   • iAssembly or iPart member name, if applicable
3. Click OK

To activate an inactive simulation, double-click the inactive simulation node in the browser. The action:

• Selects and activates the simulation.
• Collapses non-active simulation nodes.
• Expands the active simulation nodes providing access to the design criteria for the simulation.

The active simulation has a white background in the browser. Inactive simulations have a gray background. You can immediately identify which simulation you are working with and editing.

Browser update notices

When switching between simulations, the data can become stale. You see a browser node decoration, lightning bolt, indicating the need to update those items before you view the results. To update the data, right click the node and click Update.

To produce variations of a simulation, use the Copy Simulation command on the context menu of a simulation.

1. Right-click the simulation you want to copy and select Copy Simulation.
2. A copy of the simulation is created and numbered consecutively. The copy is now the active simulation. You can edit it to produce the variation.

Limitation of Copy Simulation

• Associativity between the copied object and the pasted object is not maintained.

To copy simulation objects, constraints, loads, manual contacts, and material overrides, do the following:

1. Right-click the browser node of the object and select Copy. Multi-select of the same object type is supported.
2. In the browser, right-click the simulation you want as the target for the paste action, and select Paste. Or, use the Paste command from the Edit menu.

Within the Copy command, the following applies:

Supported

• Only objects that are deemed healthy have the copy command enabled.
• Pasted object uses the original object name with the instance number generated incrementally by 1.
• You are notified of any missing references.

Limitations of Copy (simulation object)

• Does not maintain associativity between the copied object and the pasted object.
• Does not paste:
  • Simulation settings into the simulation.
  • Mesh settings into the simulation.
  • Convergence settings into the simulation.
  • Exclude states into the simulation.