First Slide. HANDLING LARGE ASSEMBLIES USING SOLIDWORKS 2004 – TIPS AND TECHNIQUES Senthil Kumar...

First Slide

HANDLING LARGE HANDLING LARGE ASSEMBLIES USING ASSEMBLIES USING

SOLIDWORKS 2004 – TIPS SOLIDWORKS 2004 – TIPS AND TECHNIQUESAND TECHNIQUES

Senthil KumarManager, Engineering Services

Shaji ShereefSr. Engineer & CSWP

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• 23 acquisitions in the past 15 years

• 2600+ Employees

• 350+ employees Dedicated to Consulting

• Large & Diverse Client Base

• Revenues of $500MM

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Today...

• Founded in 1885

Our Beginnings...

Barry-Wehmiller Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc.Companies, Inc.Barry-Wehmiller Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc.Companies, Inc.

Barry-W ehm iller Packaging Group

Packaging IndustryIntegrators

Design Group

IT and EngineeringServices

BW IR

Barry-W ehm iller Consulting Group Barry-W ehmiller Corrugated Group

Barry-W ehmiller Com panies, Inc.

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Barry-Wehmiller Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc.Companies, Inc.Barry-Wehmiller Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc.Companies, Inc.

Consulting Group FactsConsulting Group FactsConsulting Group FactsConsulting Group Facts

• Employs 300+ Consulting Professionals with broad industry experience.

• Provided Clients with 450,000+ consulting hours in the last year.

• Executed hundreds of projects.

• 2003 Revenue of $100M.

• Acquired an offshore consulting business to expand our resources and to provide cost

effective services to our global clients.

Services offeredServices offeredServices offeredServices offered

• Product Design

• Automation / API Programming

• Modeling, Drafting and Analysis Support

• Legacy Data Conversion

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• Controls Design – PLC, SCADA and Schematics

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http://www.pharmacia.com/index.asp

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HANDLING LARGE HANDLING LARGE ASSEMBLIES USING ASSEMBLIES USING

SOLIDWORKS 2004 – TIPS SOLIDWORKS 2004 – TIPS AND TECHNIQUESAND TECHNIQUES

OverviewOverview

• Define large assembly• Problems faced• Understand the issues and reasons• How to improve performance of a large

assembly– Hardware– Modeling features– Drafting features– Productivity tools– Best practices– System options

How do you define a large How do you define a large assembly?assembly?How do you define a large How do you define a large assembly?assembly?• Any assembly which slows down your machine

can be called a large assembly.

– This could be 100 parts for someone and 10,000 parts for the other.

• An assembly with 100 simple parts responds faster than an assembly with 100 complex parts.

– Complex parts mean parts with a lot of external references, curved surfaces, sweeps, loft features and more number of faces.

• Slow

• Unstable

• System Crashes

Problems encountered Problems encountered with large assemblieswith large assembliesProblems encountered Problems encountered with large assemblieswith large assemblies

• Optimizing large assembly performance boils down to reducing the amount of work the CPU, memory and disk drive have to do.

• The goal is to take available hardware and do more with large assemblies (solve / evaluate designs).

• To improve large assembly performance we need to

– Reduce memory usage

– Accelerate retrieval time

– Improve regeneration time

– Increase display speed

Understand the issues and Understand the issues and reasonsreasonsUnderstand the issues and Understand the issues and reasonsreasons

But how?But how?But how?But how?

• Hardware

• Modeling features

• Drafting features

• Productivity tools

• Best practices

• System options

We can optimize the performance by understanding the following in context of a large

assembly.

hardwarehardware

HardwareHardwareHardwareHardware

• RAM

• Faster Video Card

• CPU Speed

• Faster Data Transfer

• Network

• Service Packs

• Swap Space

First and the most influencing factor on large assembly performance is the

hardware.

Nothing could substitute for sheer system power!!

Modeling Modeling featuresfeatures

Resolved / Suppressed / Lightweight features

Modeling Features…Modeling Features…

Modeling Features…Modeling Features…Comparison of Components Suppression States

Resolved Lightweight Suppressed Hidden

Loaded in memory Yes Partially No Yes

Visible Yes Yes ** No No

Features available in FeatureManager design tree Yes Yes *** No No

Faces and edges accessible for adding mates Yes Yes *** No No

Mates solved Yes Yes No Yes

In-context features solved Yes * Yes No Yes

Assembly features solved Yes Yes No Yes

Considered in global operations Yes On demand ** No Yes

May be edited in-context Yes Yes *** No No

Load and rebuild speed Normal Faster Faster Normal

Display speed Normal Normal Faster Faster

* In-context features on resolved parts that reference lightweight parts update automatically.

** Global operations include Mass Properties, Interference Detection, Exploded View, Advanced Selection and Advanced Show/Hide, solving equations, displaying section views, and exporting to other file formats. When lightweight components are present, the software prompts you to either resolve them, or cancel the operation.

*** Lightweight components are resolved automatically when selected for this operation.

• The sketch can be used to define the location and angle for interrelated assembly components.


Assembly Layout Sketch

Unnecessary assembly components can be hidden or suppressed to minimize the visual clutter and the required system overhead. This helps to improve performance and allows the designer to effectively focus on the task at hand.

Advanced Show / Hide features


Envelopes

• Advanced component Selection (inside, outside, crossing)


Use Folders


•Organize Features in Parts

•Organize Parts in Assemblies

•Organize Mates for better control

Drafting Drafting featuresfeatures

Drafting features…Drafting features…Drafting features…Drafting features…

• Lightweight Drawings

– Lightweight drawings are analogous to lightweight assemblies. When a drawing is lightweight, only a subset of its model data is loaded in memory. The remaining model data is loaded as needed.

Drafting features…Drafting features…Drafting features…Drafting features…

• With lightweight drawings, you can:

– Create all types of drawing views

– Attach annotations to models in views

– Specify edge properties

– Highlight and dynamically select edges and vertices

– Set drawings of sub-assemblies to lightweight or resolved

Drafting features…Drafting features…Drafting features…Drafting features…• Detached drawings

– The term RapidDraft has been replaced by Detached. Detached drawings are those that do not need their associated models when opened.

Productivity Productivity toolstools

Productivity tools…Productivity tools…Productivity tools…Productivity tools…SolidWorks Task Scheduler• Unattended Automation Of:

– Drawing creation– Publish eDrawings– File import/export– Printing– Updates– Custom scripts

Productivity tools…Productivity tools…Productivity tools…Productivity tools…

eDrawings

Use eDrawings for communication.

Multi-sheet drawing with 6 sheets and 32 drawing views, 11MB (part+drawing), becomes 2MB edrawing… (82% smaller..)

Best practicesBest practices

Fully Defined Sketches

• Use Fully Defined Sketches

whenever possible

• Do not use Over Defined or

Under Defined sketches

Best practices in part Best practices in part modeling…modeling…Best practices in part Best practices in part modeling…modeling…

Image Quality

• Use Lower settings for Image

Quality for faster loading

Best practices…Best practices…Best practices…Best practices…

Rebuild Errors

• Always resolve rebuild errors



Shaded View

• Use shaded view without edges

Shaded view without edges

Shaded view with edges


Advanced Features

• Minimize use of advanced features like Sweep, Loft etc., if possible

• These features take more regeneration time

Use simple features

wherever possible

Best practices…Best practices…Best practices…Best practices…Functional Dimensions for Purchased Parts

• Model the purchased parts with minimum details (Ex: Bearings, Motors etc,)

Model purchased items as Parts than Assembly

Best Practices…Best Practices…


Configurations

• Configurations are the most powerful tool to manage large Assemblies

• Use simplified configurations for parts and assemblies

Default configuration Simple configuration


Geometry Pattern • Use geometry pattern wherever

possible

– Geometry pattern increases regeneration speed

– It also helps loading assemblies faster

Number of Steps in Feature Tree• Try to reduce the number of steps in feature tree • Plan ahead before modeling to reduce the number of features

• Combine features sensibly (mirror bodies etc..)


External References

• Remove all external references once the design is completed

• Lock the external references whenever possible


Best practices…Best practices…Best practices…Best practices…Fillets & Chamfers • Add fillets & chamfers at the end of the of the

model whenever possible

• Suppress fillets & chamfers in simplified configurations

• Combine fillets of equal size

Cosmetic Features

• Try to avoid modeling of conventional threading

• Use cosmetic threads representation

• Avoid too much cosmetic features which are not needed all the time in the design

>900 KB<100 KB



Helix

• Use only representation


Company Logos, Text etc

• Use simplified representation for company logos, text etc

Configuration for Fasteners

• Make configuration to suppress fasteners in an assembly,

• It improves the file loading time


Configuration Without Fasteners

Configuration With Fasteners

Lightweight and Configure Options

• Use lightweight & select configuration while opening an assembly


System System optionsoptions

System Options…System Options…System Options…System Options…

• Large assembly mode

– When working with large assemblies take advantage of the large assembly mode and customize the settings to increase the performance

How to switch on/off How to switch on/off large assembly mode??large assembly mode??How to switch on/off How to switch on/off large assembly mode??large assembly mode??

Other options to improve Other options to improve large assembly large assembly performance.performance.

Other options to improve Other options to improve large assembly large assembly performance.performance.• Verification of rebuild (Switch-Off)

• Image Quality Settings. (Set it as low as you can work with)

samplessamples

Rollstand frame and Splicer6000 components

Model II - Rollstand3000 components

Slitter Scorer MachineOver 5000 components

Process machinery lineOver 10,000 components

Wrap up..Wrap up..

• So…. thoughtfully developed best practices, effective utilization of configurations and understanding the innovative features available with SolidWorks 2004 will help you to design larger assemblies without compromising the performance.

Questions ?

Thank You…

Contacts:

[email protected]

[email protected]

First Slide. HANDLING LARGE ASSEMBLIES USING SOLIDWORKS 2004 – TIPS AND TECHNIQUES Senthil Kumar...

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