Dear SolidWorks users,

I would like to ask here for your help. I am modeling a steel structure that will hold some photovoltaic panels/modules and one degree of rotation is realized with bearings. Please, have a look at the pictures below to see it clearly. I will be very grateful for your help. I generaly understand the basics of SolidWorks Simulation but here I have some problems. I do not know how to include my bearing with housing in the FEA Simulation or how to model it. It is a model that is readily available on the online 3D databases and I downloaded one model and imported in SolidWorks. The problem is that the bearing is just simply modeled and it does not depict the its real structure. I am not sure If I have to design and model my own bearing so that the meshing is properly generated. I really do not want to do this since I already have the models. The question is how to include these bearings in my FEA simulation and combine them with the support profile, support arms and bolts. I would like to be able to apply some load on the PV modules (for example pressure due to wind and also own weight due to gravity) and see how the structure will react and how the stress will be distributed. I want to see how my supporting arms will react and thus size (optimize) them properly. I also want to see the load on the 25 mm bolts that go through the bearing and also through the supporting arms. I know that I can apply the load directly to the bolts, but I wanted to ask you if it is possible to still somehow include the bearings in the FEA simulation so that I would not have to make many local/separate FEA simulations.

I could imagine that a possible solution would be to model the bearing down to the smallest detail including the proper materials and sizes and then mesh it. But it would be very difficult for me to do this. Would a bearing fixture or bearing load help somehow? Could you please give some guidelines?

On the pictures below you can clearly recognize the support profile to which the bearing is bolted using two M13 bolts, the support arms that hold the bearing (currently 1 cm thick) with a bolt (M25) and the bearings (SNR/NTN UCP205) themselves.

I would be very grateful for any general comments on how to proceed with this simulation. A bearing is a very common machine element and I hope to receive some help on how to simulate the entire assembly that you see on the pictures. I could not find any help on the forum that is related to my question. If you have any links to such tutorials or discussions I will be grateful to receive it!

Thank you in advance for your help!