Science: Introduction Solidwork

Place your mouse over the image to find out about different toolbars in SolidWorks

WORKING WITH PARTS IN SOLIDWORKS:

NOTE: if you are not familiar with the layout of SolidWorks, then click here to familiarize yourself with the layout

SolidWorks allows you to view 3d parts from all different angles. There are infinite ways to view an object, but engineers usually only concern themselves with 4 main views. You can see these views in the above picture of the green link. The main views are Side, Front, Top, and Isometric.

For this tutorial you can open up any part in Solidworks. The tutorial will use the green link above to demonstrate, but any 3d part will work just as well. This link can be found in the parts.zip archive

Start SolidWorks and goto file>open
Find your part and click open.

Viewing the Part:

You can access the standard engineering views by clicking the Standard Views button on the main toolbar:

Each small box on the "Standard View" menu corresponds to a view of the object. The best way to understand what each view means is to click each view and see what happens.

Below is a front, back and isometric view of the link:

You can select a non-shaded view using the "View" toolbar: and by clicking on the non-shaded box(with hidden lines) . There is also an option for non-shaded without hidden lines, and non-shaded with solid hidden lines:

What if we want to view the indent in more detail? The standard views do not give a good view of it. Sometimes the only way to get a better look of a part or feature is to control the view manually. Use the rotate and zoom tools to get a better view of the indent. NOTE: if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can rotate and zoom without these buttons. Push down on the wheel to rotate, and spin the wheel to zoom in and out:

Extracting Dimensions From the Part:

The simplest method of extracting the dimensions of a part is to make the dimensions visible in the default view:
Right click where it says annotations on the feature manager design tree, and click where it says 'Show Feature Dimensions':

If there is a check mark next to 'Show Feature Dimensions,' all the defined dimensions will appear.
Dimensions are easier to see if the part is viewed as shaded. Sometimes rotating the part will make some of the dimensions more readable.
Another method of extracting the dimensions of a part is to use the Measure Tool:
Go to the main file menu and select Tools>Measure. The cursor will change to a ruler and a dialog box will appear with the title 'Measure.' Switch to Isometric View and then click the circular hole. The Measure Tool window will display all the properties of this hole:

Likewise, you can use the measure tool to measure the distance between any 2 lines. For example, the distance between the top and bottom of the link from the side is 1.50 inches (shading turned off for clarity):

Another method to extract dimensions of the link is to use the sketch mode. This will be most useful later on when we are interested in changing dimensions:
Goto the feature manager design tree and locate 'Base-Extrude.' Click the to reveal the sketch.

Right click on 'Sketch1' and select ‘edit sketch.’

The view will change and you will now see a 2d drawing with all the dimensions:

To exit sketch mode click the purple arrow in the top, right corner, or right click in the drawing area and select 'exit sketch':

Solving Problems with Solidworks:

Checklist for creating mechanisms:

1.) [ ] If your assembly has pins that should be located in specific locations.....Place them using the move component tool and FIX them in place

[ ] Concentric Mate your links to the fixed pins

[ ] Face mate the end of the pins to the side of the links

2.) [ ] If your assembly has objects that must be located in specific locations.....Place them using the move component tool and FIX them in place.

Measure Tool: The Measure Tool is used to get the distance between points, the angle between lines, the displacement of parts in an assembly, and anything else you would use a ruler or protractor for in real life. To open the Measure Tool you can select it from: Tools->Measure...

Or you can select the measure tool using the Tools Button on the main toolbar:

Using the tool is very simple. You can select points or lines and it gives you information regarding the two selected entities. Pay particular attention to delta x, y, and z values. It allows you to determine distance between points independently from the global origin:

To measure the angle between 2 parts you must select 2 intersecting lines or edges on those parts. Look at the following picture for clarification(the 2 red edges were selected):

To change the units for display, click the Options... button and use the drop down menu to select the units you want:

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Move Component: It is often important to be able to move a part in an assembly by a specified displacement or angle or to a specific xyz coordinate. The move component tool can be used for this if you understand how to properly use the tool. It is located on the main toolbar:

The Move Component tool has the following options (they are explained in detail below):

1.) Free Drag option is the default and it allows you to drag the selected part wherever you want. It is useful for positioning parts for mates or for moving assemblies. It is not useful for accurate movement.

2.) Along Assembly XYZ is an inaccurate method of moving a part in exclusively the x y or z direction.

3.)Move to XYZ position: This is useful if you want to move a point on a part to a specific xyz coordinate. Consider the following link, which is located somewhere random in space.

To move the link to the origin, first select a point on the link. (Notice that the origin is below the selected point and to the right at the location 0,0,0)

Next click the Move Component button on the assembly toolbar and select 'To XYZ Position.'

Enter (0,0,0) as the coordinates and hit apply:

Now the the point on the link is at the origin of the assembly:

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4.) Move by delta XYZ: This is useful when you want to move a part a specific distance relative to its current location. You can choose to move by any combination of x, y and z distances as long as the part is not fixed or restrained by a mate. In this example, move a pin in a slot by 10mm to the right. Note that since the pin is mated to the inside of the slot you cannot move it in the y or z directions.

The first step is to select a point on the pin, or the pin itself:

Next click the Move Component button on the assembly toolbar and select 'By delta XYZ.'

Change the value in deltaX to 10mm and hit apply:

Now the pin has moved 10mm to the right:

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Rotate Component: It is often important to be able to rotate a component in an assembly by a specific angle about the x y or z axis. The rotate component tool can be used for this if you understand how to properly use the tool. It is located on the main toolbar:

In this example the green link will be rotated around the pin by 45 degrees in the positive z direction. To do this, click the Rotate Component button. In the window that appears to the left of the assembly, use the drop down list to select 'By Delta XYZ'

Enter 45 into the Z text box and click apply:

The link will rotate 45 degrees and stop:

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Changing Units:

Select 'Tools' -> 'Options.' On the 'Document Properties' window select 'Units' and change them to whatever you want:

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Exporting to ANSYS: ANSYS uses a different file format from SolidWorks but it can still read SolidWorks parts as long as you first convert them to the IGES[Initial Graphics Exchange Specification] format.

1.) After saving the file in SolidWorks as the usual .sldprt file, and while that file is still open in SolidWorks, select 'File' -> 'Save As...' and change 'Save as Type' to 'IGES File (*.igs)':