"SolidWorks Simulation Standard" vs "SolidWorks Premium"?

John,

>>1) Most importantly, are the linear static analysis capabilities actually identical between the two packages?<<

Yes, identical capabilities including:

- mesh controls

- p and h adaptive mesh

- contacts

- customizable material library (by the way it's the same library used by CAD SolidWorks), so you can create a brand new material (isotropic or orthotropic and save it in the library)

- large displacement option

- same results export capability (probing nodes and export data to csv)

>> 2) I should clarify that I'm an individual retired scientist...I don't really understand what "SolidWorks routing, scan to 3d, Toolbox, rendering" or "trend tracker" are, nor how I might use them.  (I guess I have more homework to do...)  Are there any enhancements from "SolidWorks Standard" to "SolidWorks Premium" that I would be likely to need?<<

In SolidWorks Simulation standard you get 2 more features in structural analysis that you don't get with SolidWorks Premium:

Trend Tracker: allows you to edit your model by experiments (for example change part thickness) and see how streess, displacement, and mass are changing at each change you've made. See this demo and you'll get an idea:

Using the Trend Tracker in SolidWorks Simulation - YouTube

Fatigue: here's a short demo:

SolidWorks Simulation - Fatigue Analysis - YouTube

In SolidWorks Premium there are some extra features for what concerns CAD (not Simulation) which can be useful to a designer:

A short summary (maybe you should talk to your reseller to get more in depth information):

Toolbox: hardware library for SolidWorks

edrawings professional: extends the features of edrawings viewer (measure and markup)

utilities: lots of goodies (simmetry check, part simplifier, compare two parts to check what has changed or what's the difference, and more)

Task scheduler: schedule any task (for example print alla drawings in a folder, or export them to dwg)

Photoview 360: rendering. See what SolidWorks customer have done with it here: SolidWorks Gallery - All Images

Featureworks: when you import a part from another system or neutral file format (e.g. step or iges) you get no feature history, and therefore you cannot edit a part by changes its features, but you need to use direct editing. Many times it's easier to have SolidWorks recognize features and build all the features of that imported parts (e.g. extrusions, fillets). This way you can easily edit the part by editing recognized features.

Design Cheker: automates check tasks on parts and drawings (especially drawings). Examples: check all the drawings in a folder and report whether there are dangling dimensions, or check whether the font is Arial with 14 points size

Costing: very cool technology, calculate cost of sheet metal parts, machined parts, and now even weldments, injection moulded parts, 3d printed parts

Routing: easily draw piping (supplies a library of glanges, gaskets, tees, elbows),tubing, cabling. Get a drawing of your piping with isometric view automatically dimensioned and detailed bom (total pipe length, number of tees, elbows, and so on)

Scan to 3D: import in SolidWorks mesh or point cloud files (resulting from a 3D scanner), and possibily create surfaces and make it a solid

Tolanalyst: assembly tolerance stack up analysis

CircuitWorks: import ECAD files (circuits, or PCB's) and help collaboration between mechanical designers and electronics designer

SolidWorks Sustainability: simulation tool to help you make your design more sustainable

>>3) Thanks for the tip about the separate licenses.  I guess that means with the dual package (1) I could potentially continue my subscription for and/or upgrade one piece but not the other.  Right?<<

yes, but remember simulation needs a solidworks license in order to work, therefore you can't quit solidworks subscription, you can only make the other way around.

Alex