SolidWorks Online Seminar Archives

Join engineers from the Skip Barber Racing as they discuss what it takes to design a race car. From parts to assemblies, see how these race cars are developed and tested.

Join Colonel Lewis F. Setliff III of the Army Corps of Engineers as he discusses the challenges of rebuilding New Orleans, including the engineering and organizational difficulties they encountered after a disaster of that size and some of the ways they worked to overcome them.

Part inventor, part designer, part entrepreneur, today's engineers are constantly rethinking and redefining the world of tomorrow. In this unique online event, you are invited to join SolidWorks founder Jon Hirschtick and eDrawings inventor Rick Chin for an “engineer to engineer” discussion of how to design better products.

Drawing on almost 50 years of product design experience, Jon and Rick discuss five key ideas that show how understanding people is the key to great product design today – whether you are building the next iPod, a new packaging machine, or any new product. They review several award-winning product examples as well as lessons from their history designing SolidWorks.

Learn how your 3D CAD designs can flow through your entire development process – empowering more efficient and secure visualization, collaboration and CAD data interoperability. In collaboration with Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Can your company benefit from using the design automation tool DriveWorksXpress? Design Automation the DriveWorks way is easy to set up and use. It will save you from repeating the same tasks over and over again -- AND make sure your results are accurate. Download this webcast to learn more.

Rendering for all! There is no expertise necessary. Now anyone can create photographic images of their SolidWorks Designs - in minutes, not hours. With the power of HyperShot from Bunkspeed®, rendering now becomes a simple and necessary part of your creative process and work flow - from design concept to marketing images.

HyperShot’s patent-pending technology brings renderings alive, allowing you to compose and manipulate high-res 3D digital images in real-time. Designs are rendered on the fly, with stunning realism and full photographic detail. What used to require a specialist, can now be done by anyone on the team.

More and more products are now integrating electronics into their basic design. Tighter packaging requirements, repackaging, modular design are often required too. This is happening at an increasing rate in electromechanical products, often grouped under the heading of mechatronics. New techniques and products can help designers merge their ECAD design data into their 3D mechanical design EARLY in the design to help streamline the overall process.

In this webcast presentation, see different methods and examples of how designers in industry have merged electrical and mechanical design information to create improved overall designs.

SolidWorks for Dummies is a how-to book ideal for any user who ants to get up to speed or improve their efficiency using SolidWorks 3D mechanical design software. Written in a light-hearted, conversational style, the book walks you through the 3D product design process from creating sketches as the basis of parts to mating components together in a complex assembly. This webcast will demonstrate how 3D technology can increase productivity, reduce time to market, and make life easier for every engineer and designer.

This DWGseries product line webcast is geared towards showing AutoCAD® users who work on and collaborate with DWG files the advantages you can receive from these products offered by SolidWorks.

During this webcast you will learn:

How to read and write any version of DWG from within AutoCAD
How to view any DWG file received
How to maintain all your DWG files as you look to a 3D solution

This webcast gives an overview of the time-saving "tips & tricks" for creating SolidWorks® software parts and assemblies specifically for Product Designers.

This webcast is intended for anyone interested in learning how to automate the mold design process using SolidWorks software. SolidWorks provides the solution to create high-value complex molds, shorten lead time, and reduce costly mistakes throughout your mold design process. The objective of this webcast is to introduce you to the features available in SolidWorks® to help you complete typical mold design tasks.

Leadership in the medical equipment market is defined by innovation and rapid new-product introduction. As a result, the time for performing requirements analysis, design, prototyping, and field testing continues to shrink. In addition, regulatory compliance dictates managing and tracking all design documentation. Attend this webcast to find out how SolidWorks® software can help you to address these diverse requirements.

During this webcast SolidWorks users will receive an overview of the business and design challenges that engineers and designers face in the medical industry and will learn how using design validation tools can help overcome these challenges.

The design and manufacture of consumer products is perhaps the greatest challenge for MCAD. Great products are ones that translate the greatness of the initial concept into a manufactured product. During this webcast you will see how SolidWorks gives you the tools necessary to execute great consumer product design and will learn how to:

Learn how new tools in SolidWorks 2005 can help engineers and designers create metal, wood, and plastic designs faster and easier.

This archive features Todd Mansfield, a Certified SolidWorks Professional at ECCO (Electronic Controls Co.). ECCO is the world's leading manufacturer of amber warning lights and backup alarm systems for utility vehicles. During this webcast Todd explains how ECCO increases efficiency by using SolidWorks Office Professional to overcome the full range of issues surrounding the product development process, such as:

The Devil Is in the Detailing: A Look at 2D Drawings Created with SolidWorks Office
Learn how SolidWorks 3D modeling software allows you to automate the drawing process by leveraging 3D models and providing tools to quickly detail and clean up a production level drawing.

Maximize your productivity with SolidWorks Solutions Partner products
In this webcast you will learn the benefits of the SolidWorks artner Program and how this program is extending the value of

SolidWorks throughout the product development process, as well as how the Partner Program can maximize your productivity. There are also specific examples of best-in-class Partner Program offerings, featuring brief overview demonstrations.

Streamlining Product Development through Integrating Physical Test with Mechanical Design and Analysis

See first hand how to instrument your SolidWorks models with sensors, and compare the physical sensor measurements from LabVIEW with the simulated sensor values from COSMOSWorks analysis on a 3D geometry model using NI INSIGHT. Real world case studies in structural, thermal & vibration domains will illustrate how to do the correlation between physical test and design analysis and the value it provides to identify and remedy trouble spots by feeding the proper measurement data back into your design process.

Parts and structures subjected to cyclic mechanical and thermal loads will suffer from fatigue. Whether you design engine parts or bridges, the Fatigue module can help you predict how fatigue will affect the overall life of the product, and identify the areas that may be critically damaged.

To make the modeling process faster and easier, you can consider stresses associated with load conditions previously calculated through load cases or time-steps. You may also modify the stored stresses in the standard database or specify your own stresses to create the most realistic model for fatigue analysis.

COSMOSWorks and COSMOSMotion 2007 - Raising the Bar in Mainstream Design Analysis

COSMOS raises the bar once again in design analysis with the latest release of its award winning software. COSMOS enables designers and engineers to analyze and communicate designs faster and easier than ever before.

COSMOSWorks 2007 includes a number of user-driven enhancements that make sophisticated design analysis easy. Find out how new design analysis functionality in COSMOSWorks can help build better, safer and more durable products. Learn how the updated user interface helps to do everything from a simple linear analysis to more advanced nonlinear, drop test and fatigue analyses typically found only in complex and expensive analysis software, all without leaving the SolidWorks environment.

SolidWorks Office Premium now includes COSMOSMotion. With COSMOSMotion, designers can simulate mechanical operations of moving assemblies and the physical forces they generate.

Simplify your assembly analysis by simulating connectors. Bolts, Pins, Springs, Elastic support, Rigid bars etc., can be included in your COSMOS assembly analysis without having to model them. In this seminar, you can gain understanding on how this can speed up analysis set-up and solution.

The original design validation solution for SolidWorks is better than ever! Fast, powerful, and accurate design analysis within the same SolidWorks interface you already use every day. Optimize product designs by using SolidWorks analysis tools to simulate real-world conditions and test multiple "what if" scenarios.

In this seminar, you can gain an understanding of what design analysis is, how it works, and learn about the modeling, meshing and other design analysis capabilities.

SolidWorks Office Premium is a new top-of-the-line design engineering solution that provides all of the capabilities included in SolidWorks Office Professional, plus the powerful tools offered by COSMOSWorks Designer design validation and SolidWorks Routing add-on modules. Upfront design validation allows designers to make better quality products without the delay and cost of physical prototypes. Part of the COSMOSWorks suite of design validation software, COSMOSWorks Designer works inside SolidWorks. The add-on performs upfront stress, displacement, and contact analysis on both SolidWorks parts (including thin and sheet metal parts) and assemblies.

This seminar will review the key features of design validation and analysis inside SolidWorks Office Premium.

No time to learn Finite Element Analysis (FEA)? Don't think it can help at your company? Not ready to make the leap? Think again! CAD users were specialists 20 years ago too! The bottom line, if you are not using FEA, you will…if you will not, you'll get left behind!

FEA has become a part of the mainstream design process, crossing all industries, geographies, and experience levels. Now more than ever, design engineers and designers need to understand how to take advantage of this technology at a level that works for them without getting overwhelmed. This webcast will review techniques that non-analysts, the rest of us, can use to plan, execute, validate, and interpret FEA-based simulation data to make better and faster design decisions on all types of parts, materials, and manufacturing processes.

Go beyond your 3D design by verifying your intuitions and study the real-world performance of different design alternatives without ever leaving the SolidWorks window!

This seminar is designed for users who would like to learn more about the COSMOSWorks and COSMOSMotion software's capabilities. COSMOSWorks which is a tool of structural analysis allows engineers to handle even the most complex problems of deformation and stress analysis with ease. COSMOSMotion is a tool of mechanism analysis. It enables engineers to size motors/actuators, determine power consumption, layout linkages, develop cams, understand gear drives, size springs/dampers, and determine how contacting parts behave. Together, the combined powers of SolidWorks, COSMOSWorks and COSMOSMotion provide a new quality in design analysis with benefits such as the ability to consider more designs, risk reduction, and the availability of valuable information for making design decisions early in the process of mechanism design. The result is a quantitative reduction in physical prototyping costs and reduced product development time.

Using COSMOSXpress Inside SolidWorks
Gain insight into how your SolidWorks® design will function with COSMOSXpress™, the point-and-click stress wizard built into SolidWorks 3D modeling software.

For designers with no previous virtual simulation experience, COSMOSXpress guides you step-by-step through the design validation process - allowing you to explore the benefits of first-pass design checks without any cost.

Design Analysis 101
Specifically tailored for designers and engineers who are not specialists in design validation, COSMOSWorks Designer helps improve product quality by indicating how SolidWorks models will behave before they are built. Go beyond simple hand calculations by verifying your intuitions and study the real-world performance of different design alternatives without ever leaving the SolidWorks window.

This seminar is designed for SolidWorks users who are unfamiliar with COSMOSWorks and would like to learn more about the software's capabilities.

Optimization wih COSMOSWorks
Webcast was presented by Vince Adams, SolidWorks Corporation, COSMOS Analysis Products Product Manager. The word optimum means "best or most favorable" in the English dictionary. To a designer or engineer, an optimum design would be one that saves material and does not break or overheat in its normal course of operation during its life cycle. In the process of coming up with an optimum design a design engineer normally would go through a few series of prototypes, which may incorporate lab or field-testing and some intuition. Fully embedded inside SolidWorks, COSMOSWorks Optimization seeks to automate this process for the designer. Rather than force a designer to perform repeat analysis on various shapes and sizes of the same model, the optimization program iteratively finds the "optimum" design based on the initial design intent.

Design, Analyze & Test are the basic building blocks of any product development cycle and leveraging them together leads to much faster design iterations. The integration between SolidWorks design models, COSMOSWorks analysis models and National Instruments LabVIEW virtual instrumentation for test data acquisition and NI INSIGHT for CAD based visualization of test, simulation & video results provide a closed loop feedback mechanism for the design engineer to leverage real world measurements as part of the design cycle. During this 45-minute Webcast on Demand, technical experts from SolidWorks and National Instruments demonstrate, using a practical example of validating the design of a model airplane wing, the ability to do integrated design and analysis and then comparing the results side-by-side with prototype test results in a common 3D visualization environment to pinpoint trouble spots and correct them before production.

COSMOS Helps CSUN Formula SAE Team Develop Competitive Racing Engines
Seminar was hosted by Alain Khella and John Mason, both candidates for masters degrees in mechanical engineering at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). This seminar is intended for those engineers and engineering managers interested in learning more about how college students used COSMOSWorks and COSMOSFloWorks to analyze and refine engine designs for the Formula SAE racing competition. Topics covered include:

Designing the Future: How Technology is Changing the Design Process (Panel of Industry Experts)
The one-hour panel discussion, moderated by Desktop Engineering’s Editorial Director Tony Lockwood. Industry experts meet with designers and engineers who are using CAE tools as part of the design process. Speakers include:

Vince Adams - Impact Engineering
Steve Hess - Teradyne
Peter Berg - Texas Instruments
Raymond Kurland - TechniCom

Simulating Real Life Operating Conditions Using Analysis
Webcast was hosted by Vince Adams, co-author of "Building Better Products with Finite Element Analysis" and Director of Analysis Services at IMPACT Engineering Solutions, Inc. This seminar is intended for those engineers and engineering managers interested in learning more about the correct selection of boundary conditions in the construction of an FE model and the implications of improper or poorly thought out choices. Topics covered include:

Designing the Mars Exploration Rover Robotic Arm Utilizing Paperless Workflow
Webcast was hosted by Brett Lindenfeld, the Director of Engineering at Alliance Spacesystems, Inc. This seminar is intended for those engineers and engineering managers interested in learning more about the processes and challenges involved in designing the robotic arms for the historic Mars Exploration Rover. Topics covered include:

Nonlinear Analysis
In the real world, most engineering problems contain some kind of nonlinear effect. This seminar is designed for users who are interested in learning more about nonlinear analysis: what it is, when to use this type of analysis, and how to approach these types of problems. In this seminar you will:

Reducing Field Failures with COSMOS Analysis Tools
It is every manufacturers' worst nightmare. You design a product that looks great, mass produce it, and then it fails in the field. Field failures are not only expensive from a product recall standpoint, but also create legal liabilities and can be damaging to a company's reputation. By using COSMOS analysis tools early in the design cycle, you can identify and correct potential design problems before they even make it to the production floor.

Overcoming the Prototyping Bottleneck
Before a new product goes into production, prototype testing is done to ensure that the product's performance meets customer expectations. By using 3D design analysis technology to predict design behavior, designers can optimize product designs without building a single prototype. In this webcast you will learn: what is 3D Design Analysis?, how can 3D Design analysis help reduce physical testing and prototyping, 3D Design analysis in five simple steps and more.

How SolidWorks and COSMOS Can Make You More Productive
In this webcast, you will learn what Design Analysis and FEA is, and how it can help you build better, safer, more durable products. See a live demonstration of COSMOSWorks inside SolidWorks.

Fix Product Design Flaws Early in the Development Cycle with COSMOSWorks Analysis Tools
As a result of putting untested designs straight into prototype or production, some companies are jeopardizing customer relationships or compromising product safety. Or they're simply staying the course with dated products. The premise "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" can also add to costs through the use of excess materials that could be trimmed by judicious streamlining. Saving one-tenth of a penny per unit adds up when you're producing thousands of units. In this seminar you will explore the need for design analysis software, learn the business benefits of using design analysis software, and see examples of how other companies are benefiting from analysis. See a COSMOSWorks™ demonstration.

COSMOSXpress Analysis Tools Inside SolidWorks
COSMOSXpress™ is a new design verification tool built in to SolidWorks 2003. COSMOSXpress can help you determine how your designs will perform under real-world conditions, and identify potential design flaws before expensive physical prototypes are built. In this webcast you will:

This seminar was hosted by Dr. Reza Tabatabai, technical manager with the COSMOS Advanced Analysis Group, and is intended for those designers and engineers interested in learning more about affordable, easy to learn methods of checking the real-world performance of their parts and assemblies without hand calculations or physical prototypes. Topics covered include:

Every year CSUN students build their own style Formula racecars. The design and fabrication of the FSAE racecar takes place over a period of nine months and is used as a training ground for young and innovative engineers in preparation for the engineering industry. This project employs the skills required in an engineering firm, from the design process to the fabrication process, where each step is always taking cost, ease of manufacturing, time, and safety into consideration. A complete force analysis of CSUN Formula SAE 2006 racecar suspension was performed with help of SolidWorks, COSMOSMotion, and COSMOSWorks.

Seminar was hosted by Hari Padmanabhan, COSMOSMotion Product Manager, and Sunitha Dasoju, a recent CSUN graduate with a master's degree in mechanical engineering.

SolidWorks Office Premium now includes COSMOSMotion. With COSMOSMotion, designers can simulate mechanical operations of moving assemblies and the physical forces they generate.

COSMOSMotion is a powerful tool for calculating mechanism movement and dynamic velocities, accelerations and forces. However, there are many other ways that design engineers can utilize COSMOSMotion in their daily activities to automate or improve the product development process. In this webcast, you can see how COSMOSMotion can be used for 2D & 3D free-body diagrams, cam profile generation, and more.

COSMOSMotion in Action
Fully embedded inside of SolidWorks, COSMOSMotion is the standard virtual prototyping package for engineers and designers interested in understanding the performance of their SolidWorks models.

With the seamless transfer of loads from COSMOSMotion to COSMOSWorks, you can visualize stress and displacements on a component at a single time instance or for the entire simulation cycle.

Multi-Physics Inside SolidWorks - Stress Analysis Using Loads Generated from Motion Simulation
This seminar was hosted by hosted by Arvind Krishnan, Product Definition Engineer for COSMOSWorks, and is intended for engineers and engineering managers interested in learning more about ways to identify and reduce stresses caused by moving parts in an assembly without ever leaving the SolidWorks interface by using COSMOSWorks and COSMOSMotion. Topics covered include:

COSMOSMotion - Motion Simulation Inside SolidWorks
COSMOSMotion simulates the mechanical operations of motorized assemblies and the physical forces they generate. Motion simulation is used in many different applications from motor sizing and dynamic balancing of a CD player to the design of cable and pulley systems. In this seminar you will learn more about Motion Simulation and see how Motion Simulation can help you virtually test your designs. See a demonstration of COSMOSMotion inside SolidWorks

COSMOSFloWorks 2007 features a number of enhancements, including thin wall technology, COSMOSFloWorks Animator, cavity prediction and relative humidity calculation, to name a few. See how these and other features help make your fluid flow simulations faster and easier.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a simulation tool that can be of assistance in solving a number of real world problems. Very often, however, CFD programs are complex and difficult to use, especially by design engineers who have not had great deal of advanced education in the physics of fluid flows. COSMOSFloWorks offers intelligent, easy-to-use CFD to design engineers who use SolidWorks design creation.

This seminar uses heat sinks, a medical suction device, a household oven, and an industrial control valve as examples that illustrate how COSMOSFloWorks can help design engineer users create the best possible product designs when dealing with heat transfer and fluid flow problems.

Understanding the Effects of Temperature Changes on Your Designs
Thermal analysis allows design engineers and analysis experts to perform heat transfer analysis of simple models or complex 3D assemblies. Thermal analysis allows engineers to study temperature changes encountered by mechanical parts and structures in their normal operating conditions, which influence a product's performance.

Rotating Flow Inside COSMOSFloWorks
This seminar is designed for engineers who design equipment with rotating components, and who need to analyze and understand the behavior of those components in order to improve product performance.

COSMOSFloWorks is perfect for the engineer who needs flow analysis, but is not an expert in the field of fluid simulation. Using COSMOSFloWorks in the product development cycle can help you build a better product in less time.

COSMOSFloWorks in the Medical Industry
This seminar is designed for medical product design engineers who are considering purchasing a CFD solution for SolidWorks and would like to learn more about the capabilities of COSMOSFloWorks in the medical industry.

COSMOSFloWorks in the Electronics Industry
This seminar is designed for electronic engineers who are considering purchasing a CFD solution for SolidWorks and would like to learn more about the capabilities of COSMOSFloWorks in the electronics industry.

Smarter Fluid Dynamics Simulation
This seminar was hosted by Bill Dziedzic, a senior consulting engineer for SolidWorks, and is intended for those engineers and engineering managers interested in learning more about better ways to simulate fluid and gas flows through and around their designs without ever leaving the SolidWorks interface by using COSMOSFloWorks. Topics covered include:

COSMOSFloWorks - Fluid Flow Analysis Inside SolidWorks
Fluid flow analysis enables engineers to understand, validate and improve the effects of fluid flow and heat transfer on product performance. Fluid flow analysis is used in many different industries, from designing efficient cooling system for electronics, simulating blood flow for medical applications, to studying air flow around airplanes and automobiles. In this seminar you will earn more about Fluid Flow analysis and see examples of real life applications of Fluid Flow analysis in various industries. See demonstration of COSMOSFloWorks inside SolidWorks

3D-powered Catalogs: Sending and Receiving 3D Models of Components over the Web
Component suppliers and buyers, find out how you can improve your business. Suppliers, see your how customers and prospects can easily access your CAD data and configure and download the components they need. Buyers, learn where and how to access millions of configurable, downloadable 3D component models from dozens of leading component manufacturers – for quick, easy use in your own designs.

Managing Engineering Data with SolidWorks® Office Professional
Learn to manage engineering data, Easily search for and retrieve the correct revision of a design, share engineering data within a workgroup and more!