What on Earth happened to SolidWorks?

[Chlorate]

Hi all,

I've been very frustrated with SolidWorks lately, ever since I updated from the 10/11 to the 11/12 student version, the beam analysis software seems to have gone screwy.

After meshing a lot of the beams seem to go wonky at corners, i.e. they don't join where they should:

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/4075/wonkymesh.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/829/wonkymesh.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

And it seems to have a lot of trouble with curved beams:

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/3336/curvefail.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/810/curvefail.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)


In the old version it appeared to work flawlessly. I've tried models I created in both the 2011 version and the 2012 version on two different machines, and the same bugs appear on both.

I also keep getting the error: "Model is unstable, restraints may be inadequate"

Anyone else had this sort of trouble? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif


Thanks,

Alex

[Chlorate]

Hi all,

I've been very frustrated with SolidWorks lately, ever since I updated from the 10/11 to the 11/12 student version, the beam analysis software seems to have gone screwy.

After meshing a lot of the beams seem to go wonky at corners, i.e. they don't join where they should:

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/4075/wonkymesh.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/829/wonkymesh.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

And it seems to have a lot of trouble with curved beams:

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/3336/curvefail.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/810/curvefail.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)


In the old version it appeared to work flawlessly. I've tried models I created in both the 2011 version and the 2012 version on two different machines, and the same bugs appear on both.

I also keep getting the error: "Model is unstable, restraints may be inadequate"

Anyone else had this sort of trouble? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif


Thanks,

Alex

[Drew Price]

Your problem is that the 'balloon' that SW uses to define each node is too small. The multiple purple nodes at each intersection mean that it is computing all three of those points as intersections, rather than a single node in the middle of all the tubes. That's one of the assumptions that the beam element analysis makes to simplify the computations.

I forget the name of the menu parameter off-hand, but you can configure how close the tubes need to be for SW to interpret them all meeting at the same node. It's one of the parameters you configure while constraining the beam analysis.

The size of the balloon is probably something like 1.5 inches, try making it 3-4 inches and see if all of your nodes match up correctly.

I had the same problem with one of my designs that had joints with members intersecting at very shallow angles.

[typeh]

I face the same problem.
same gray balloons appeared and in simulation i see model is unstable and in the older version was working properly.

Although drawing is same symmetric this problem appear to me in one side only and appeared in some models and some didn't appear and maybe small change in a far link may make it appears again.

I tried change joints size but result was that joints in that place totally disappeared.

I guess that latest solidworks student version has problem hope anyone from solidworks in forum can answer.