LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS®
LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS®
Interface SOLIDWORKS® with COMSOL Multiphysics® via LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS®
A helicopter swashplate mechanism translates flight control inputs to the orientation of the rotor blades.
Integrated Interface for COMSOL® Simulations and 3D Designs in SOLIDWORKS®
COMSOL Multiphysics® with LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS® delivers enhanced connectivity so you can efficiently integrate simulation into your design workflow. SOLIDWORKS® is a premier CAD solution for 3D design and product data management. When used together with multiphysics simulation, it provides a powerful tool for product design, evaluation and optimization. Using LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS®, you can leverage the functionality of COMSOL Multiphysics to better understand how your SOLIDWORKS® design performs in its intended operating environment and accurately evaluate the impact of essentially any physical effects and their interactions.
The One Window Interface Brings COMSOL Multiphysics Into the SolidWorks User Interface
LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS® includes a bidirectional interface between the COMSOL Desktop® and SOLIDWORKS®. Through this interface, you can synchronize the CAD design with the COMSOL model, and, in the other direction, you can let your simulation control the design parameters in the SolidWorks file. This enables the optimizing of CAD designs through simulations with automated parametric sweeps. Providing an even closer integration, the One Window Interface brings the familiar windows, tools, icons, and menu items from COMSOL Multiphysics and makes them available to set up and run simulations from within the SolidWorks user interface.
Synchronize SOLIDWORKS® 3D CAD and COMSOL Multiphysics® Model Geometries
LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS® enables synchronization between your COMSOL model geometry and the corresponding SolidWorks CAD file. Through synchronization, physics definitions and boundary conditions remain associated with their respective model domains even when a design has changed. Using the One Window Interface, synchronization is automatic when a change in the design has been detected during switching between the SolidWorks design environment and the COMSOL simulation environment.
SolidWorks design parameters can be iteratively accessed by COMSOL Multiphysics, facilitating optimization studies including parametric sweeps to evaluate the effect of properties such as the diameter of a hole or thickness of a component in your design. LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS® ensures that design changes are propagated automatically eliminating the need to import and export your designs each time they are updated.
File Handling and Sharing
LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS® includes functionality to import, export, and even link CAD files with models in COMSOL Multiphysics. There are several options for saving files that facilitate sharing both SolidWorks designs and the associated COMSOL models with your collleagues. LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS® features all of the functionality of the CAD Import Module plus enhanced connectivity including the One Window interface embedded within SolidWorks.
CAD files can be imported in the SOLIDWORKS format (.sldprt, .sldasm) and in the widely used IGES, STEP, ACIS®, and Parasolid® formats. In addition, you can import the native files of the Inventor®, and PTC® Creo® Parametric™ CAD systems. The optional File Import for CATIA® V5 provides support for importing the native file format for this system. Imported CAD geometries are converted to Parasolid® geometries using LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS® permitting a range of geometry operations that prepare your designs for simulation. Parasolid geometries can be further modified in COMSOL Multiphysics to add larger domains surrounding the original CAD design to simulate external physical effects such as fluid flow. To share modified geometry from COMSOL Multiphysics just export to either the ACIS or Parasolid formats.
Streamline Geometries for Simulation
COMSOL model geometries created from an imported CAD geometry often require some manipulation to reduce the complexity of the mesh and improve the efficiency of the simulation in COMSOL Multiphysics. LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS® provides functionality for geometry manipulation also available in the CAD Import Module. Important capabilities include the ability to automatically repair and defeature geometries.
During the import of a CAD geometry, anomalies that exist in a design are automatically detected and removed from the geometry. Healing is also performed to eliminate gaps so that a solid can be formed after the import. Tolerances can be specified for the file import to control the geometry repair process. The process works in very much the same way to defeature an imported design that contains many small, features such as fillets. LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS® can detect small features that will produce a dense mesh and decrease the efficiency of your simulations. Features can be removed and repaired manually in SolidWorks or in the COMSOL environment.
Virtual geometry operations are available with COMSOL Multiphysics to provide yet another method to prevent fine design details from creating regions with dense meshes. By using this functionality, you create a virtual geometry for meshing where you exclude selected features of the CAD design. A distinct advantage is that the original curvature of the design is maintained, which may improve simulation accuracy for certain applications such as analyzing stresses in structural contact.
SolidWorks is a registered trademark of Dassault Systemes SolidWorks Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. For a list of such trademark owners, see http://www.comsol.com/tm. COMSOL AB and its subsidiaries and products are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by these trademark owners.
LiveLink™ for SOLIDWORKS®
Product Features
- A LiveLink™ interface that synchronizes between the SOLIDWORKS® 2017 or 2018 versions of the CAD software and COMSOL Multiphysics when both are running simultaneously
- Works with an embedded COMSOL Desktop® within the SOLIDWORKS® GUI, or as two separately run programs running simultaneously
- Synchronize 3D geometric objects (solids, surfaces, curves and points) between SOLIDWORKS® geometries and COMSOL Multiphysics®
- The synchronized geometry is associative, i.e., the CAD model can be modified in SOLIDWORKS® without the need to re-apply model settings in COMSOL Multiphysics® after re-synchronization
- For faster synchronization of large assemblies, the associativity feature for faces, edges, or vertices can be turned off, if not needed
- Synchronize material selections and other user-defined selections between the SOLIDWORKS® design and the COMSOL® model
- Synchronize parameters between the SOLIDWORKS® design and COMSOL Multiphysics® model to modify the COMSOL Multiphysics® geometry, either manually or as controlled by a parametric or optimization solver
- Connect to COMSOL Server™ from within SOLIDWORKS® to browse and run apps from within the SOLIDWORKS® interface, including those that use geometry synchronized with SOLIDWORKS®.
- File import of the most popular CAD file formats, see table below
- Encapsulate geometries to model phenomena in the surrounding domains
- Export geometry files to the Parasolid® and ACIS® file formats
- Geometry repair through identification of geometric inconsistencies and knitting surfaces to create solids
- Defeaturing through the finding and deletion of fillets, short edges, sliver faces, small faces, and spikes
- Manually deleting faces and healing the resulting gaps through filling (creating a new face) or patching (shrinking or expanding adjacent faces)
- Detaching faces from a solid object to create a new solid object
- Cap holes or empty spaces to fill the space and create modeling domains
- Patch removed faces by growing or shrinking the surrounding surfaces to cover the removed face
Supported File Formats
Note that not all file formats are supported on all operative systems, for details see System Requirements
| File Format | Extension | Version | Import | Export |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACIS® | .sat, .sab, .asat, .asab | up to 2018 1.0 (import), R4, R7, 2016 1.0 (export) |
Yes | Yes |
| AutoCAD® | .dwg | 2.5-2017 | Yes | No |
| AutoCAD® DXF | .dxf | 2.5-2016 | Yes | No |
| IGES | .igs, .iges | up to 5.3 | Yes | No |
| Inventor® assemblies | .iam | 11, 2008-2017 | Yes | No |
| Inventor® parts | .ipt | 6-11, 2008-2017 | Yes | No |
| NX® | .prt | up to 11 | Yes | No |
| Parasolid® | .x_t, .xmt_txt, .x_b, .xmt_bin | up to V30.0 | Yes | Yes |
| PTC® Creo® Parametric™ | .prt, .asm | 1.0-4.0 | Yes | No |
| PTC® Pro/ENGINEER® | .prt, .asm | 16 to Wildifire 5.0 | Yes | No |
| SOLIDWORKS® | .sldprt, .sldasm | 98-2017 | Yes | No |
| STEP | .step | AP203, AP214 | Yes | No |
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