DesignSpace allows you to analyze your assemblies by providing a variety of contact capabilities where parts or bodies meet allowing you to transfer structural loads and heat flows across the contact boundaries.

Contact 

Contact controls are available that broaden the range of contact simulations.

Multi Body Parts

The mesh for multi body parts will share nodes where the bodies touch one another, that is, they will have common nodes at the interfaces.

DesignSpace provides optimal loading options to simulate loading conditions for almost every design scenario.

Bearing

Applies a variable distribution of force to one complete right cylinder.

Moment

Distributes a moment about an axis across one or more flat or curved surfaces.

Pretension

Applies a pretension load to a cylindrical surface, typically to model a bolt under pretension.

Remote Force

Used to specify the location in space from which a force originates.

Inertia Relief

Calculates both translational and rotational accelerations to counterbalance applied loads.

Motion

Allows users to define and analyze the motion in an assembly of bodies to determine reaction forces and moments at the joints between bodies.

Global

Applies acceleration, standard earth gravity, and/or rotational velocity to parts or bodies.

DesignSpace provides a variety of constraint conditions that are critical to the analysis process when precise results are desired.

Compression Only Support 

Applies a compression only constraint normal to one or more surfaces.

Given Displacement 

Applies a constraint on an edge, surface, or point with the option of constraining the part in the X, Y, and/or Z components by simply using zero as the input distance in the direction to constrain.

Remote Displacement

Allows the application of displacements and rotations at arbitrary remote locations in space.

Frictionless Support

Prevents one or more flat or curved surfaces from moving or deforming in the normal direction.

Cylindrical Support

Prevents one or more cylindrical surfaces from moving or deforming in combinations of radial, axial, or tangential directions.

DesignSpace offers meshing tools that customize the mesh in order to refine the analysis, yielding more accurate results.

Part Proximity

Performs a pre-refinement on the meshed edges of a part

Mesh Sizing

Sets the element size for a selected body, face, or edge, the divisions along an edge, and the element size within a user-defined "sphere of influence."

Sphere of Influence

Allows the application of mesh sizing within the confines of a sphere in space that is defined.

Mesh Sweeping

If a parts topology is recognized as sweepable, the part can be meshed very efficiently with hexahedral and wedge elements using this technique.

Contact Sizing

Creates elements of relatively the same size on bodies from the surfaces of a face-to-face contact region.

Refinement Controls

Specify the maximum number of meshing refinements that are applied to the initial mesh.

Mapped Face Meshing Control

Place a mapped face mesh control on a surface, specifically, quadrilateral and triangular faces for sheet models and only triangular faces for solid models.

Match Face Mesh Control

Matches the mesh on two faces for non-swept solid parts. The recommended use of this control is for problems that involve cyclic symmetry.

DesignSpace provides a list of tasks or steps that help assist and interpret the simulation process.

Wizard

An interactive checklist for accomplishing a specific goal. Offers a step by step guidance for performing analysis tasks.

DesingSpace offers automatic refinement of the mesh within a part or assembly in the attempt to find the most accurate results.

Adaptivity

Convergence can be used to refine the element size of the mesh that is used. The mesh can be refined based on a specific solution result. The converged solution will automatically adjust the element size yielding the most accurate results.

DesignSpace provides thermodynamic analysis options to calculate the stresses related to temperature and heat flow.

Convection

Causes convective heat transfer to occur through one or more flat or curved surfaces (in contact with a thermal fluid).

Given Temperature

Imposes a constant temperature on one or more surface, edge, or vertices.

Internal heat Generation

Applies a uniform heat generation rate internal to a body.

Heat Flux

Applies a uniform heat flux to one or more flat or curved surfaces.

Heat Flow

Specifies the rate of heat flow though a surface, edge, or vertices.

Perfectly Insulated

Overrides or applies a "no load" insulated condition to a surface.

DesignSpace provides a free vibration analysis to obtain the natural frequencies and mode shapes of a structure.

Modal

Free vibration analysis does not consider the response of the structure under dynamic loads but solves for the natural frequencies to set up the system for the more complicated harmonic analysis.

DesignSpace offers several solution options to assist in the design, modification, or focus of a part or assembly.

Set Parameters

Allows the adaptivity of CAD files by providing links between the CAD parts or assemblies to the DesignSpace data base. Creates a spreadsheet data base that allows multi-input parameters for multi-output results.

Shape Results

Shape optimization provides insight into the optimal layout of material to carry a given load. This is a guide in determining parametric or feature changes to improve the design of a part or the assembly.

Scope Results

Environment objects can be scoped to geometry that is selected. When scoping results to contiguous edges, a graph is superimposed on the model that shows the variation of the result along the length of the scoped edges.

Solution Information

Track, monitor, or diagnose problems that arise during a nonlinear solution.

Contact Tool

Apply a Contact Tool to any assembly to verify the transfer of loads across the various contact regions.

DesignSpace provides several postprocessing options to manipulate the visual presentation of the analysis results.

Displacement Scaling

The deformed shape can be changed to view the actual deformation or a scaled view to enhance the deformation perception.

Slice Planes

Allows the user to capture a planer surface that is within a model and helps determine the depth and severity or particular stress points and locations.

Probe Tool

Allows the user to determine the amount of measured results at a specific location. The probe tool can set markers that will tag the location with the value.

Animation

Allows the options to play, pause, and stop animation. The animation tool provides valuable information by simulating the actual physical behavior of the part or assembly.

Manipulating the Legend

The contour bands of the legend can be interactively adjusted by clicking the legend and dragging the contour grips, or typing in values.

Exporting Results

Tabular data from the geometry and worksheet document can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet file.

Error Estimation

Inset error result based on stresses, or heat flux to help identify regions or high error. These regions show where the model would benefit from a more refined mesh in order to get a more accurate answer.