Hi Everyone,
We have to work on a project at Uni in which we have to design then build a structure that can support an 18 kg of a rectengular metal block and it has to have a gap underneath it as well (175mm). The structure itself has to be as light as possible and it can be made only out of 3 mm thick plywood that the university provides. The parts will be cut out with a CNC laser cutter.
I have already come up with a design, my only problem is how to simulate it in Solidworks to get the most accurate results?
I have one major questions:
1. Theoretically, the structure will apply a uniformly distributed load on the top of my structure. In reality, this is not the case as the structure deforms under the load, the UDL will become a two point load. So, to simulate this, I defined a fictive material that is extremely strong and lightweight compared to other materials and used it to create a "U" shaped block(grey part) that I can place on the top of my structure.
Would I get more realistic results if I run the simulation with this setting?

Thank you for your help,
Tamas