I am looking to do a static simulation for a series of sheet metal brackets with mounting teeth installed on a wall standard with a series of rectangular cuts.
I am currently trying to make a simple assembly making sure there is no interference, fixing the standard in space, and using "no penetration" contact sets for the parts that would interact when a load is applied.
I don't use simulation often so I am trying different mesh styles (curvature vs standard) and densities. My results from test to test have have precise displacement, but the stresses are inconsistent. Sometimes the material is yielding, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes the materials stress is spread out, sometimes solidworks decides that all the stress is in one area. I'm also plagued by "PRE1 program not completed successfully" errors after making minor tweaks. I sware the errors come and go with identical setups. Not sure if study files saved in the root folder causes issues when re-simulating.
Ideally, I'd like the simulation to act as if the bracket feels weight, bends, and then interacts with the standard as it would in reality..
Any wisdom on what setup would work?
I like problems like this, common real-world applications that present some subtle challenges to simulate.
As for this setup
- all the manually defined contact sets were low-accuracy type
- the mesh on the standard was draft quality
- the full roller-slider restraint on the entire bracket could have been better done with half symmetry on a cut model
Starting with the study properties,
"Improve accuracy for no penetration contacting surfaces" means every manual contact set will be pre-defined as surface-to-surface type. Documentation on this is thin, but generally surface-to-surface works, and the other types do not. I always pick this option first thing. Always.
Surface-to-surface is under the "Advanced" tab. The tab is not shown unless your general Simulation options is set for it.
For this small study I suppressed all the manual contacts and used a component no-penetration contact.
The curvature based mesher is great for this geometry, mostly boring flats with radii right where we want refinement anyway. I added a little manual refinement around the mating cutouts.
For lateral restraint of the bracket I just picked one vertex and told it to stay in plane.
The run took 58 seconds. Stress is seen where expected, pulling out at the top tab and pushing in at the bottom.
Further mesh refinement in the contact areas can be done to get more specific answers, depending on your objectives.