Hi all, I have a couple of questions:
1. I was just wondering why we use von Misses stress theory in Solidworks while performing FEA? Are there any particular advantages of using this particular theory as compared to principal stress/ principal strain theory?
2. Solidworks is one of the most user friendly softwares that i have come across but I am not so sure about how Solidworks is as compared to Ansys when it comes to static analysis of simple components? Are the results comparable to the ones obtained in Ansys? Thanks!
Hello Raghav
Von Misses failure criteria is a good representation of failure in ductile material. It is widely used and easy to interpret since it is a simple scalar quantity. Since most FEA in mechanical design is done for metals, it is an excellent default. Maximum principal stress is suited for brittle material. SOLIDWORKS provides several different failure criterion and reporting methods so you can adjust to your material and load cases as needed.
Regarding accuracy, assuming mesh, loading and restraints are set up similarly, you will get nearly identical results for common mechanical component and assembly stress. There are academic whitepapers available that show the commonality of results between many FEA solvers. As you mentioned, the biggest difference between tools is the ease of setup of problems and the ease of reviewing and interpreting results.
Mike