Everything you need to know about the Simulation workspace in Fusion 360

ELIZABETH BISHOP: Hello, and thanks for joining my class today: Everything You Need to Know About the Simulation Workspace in Fusion 360. We've only got half an hour today. So it's going to be a whistle stop tour of the entire simulation workspace in Fusion 360.

So a little bit about me: My name is Elizabeth Bishop, or Liz, and I did my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Warwick in the UK. And I'm currently finishing off my PhD in large scale additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. I'm also a maker in residence in our engineering build space, or maker a space, at the University of Warwick, and I help run that space on a day to day basis.

You might remember me from some previous AU talks, and also from the UAV project that I did that was on display at Vegas for a couple of years. If you've got any questions throughout this class, then please feel free to reach out on the class page. Post any comments or questions that you've got on there, and I'll get back to you. Can also reach out through my social media tags down there below. And we've also got the build space tag there, in case you need to get in contact with the build base.

So today's session, we're going to have a look at the whole of the simulation workspace in Fusion 360. And we'll go through the basics of how the space works, and how you set up a simulation in general. And then we'll have a look at all the different types of the simulations that are available, and why you might want to use each one, and the benefits of what they can do and how you might use them. Then we'll have a look at the results and how you can use those in your designs.

So why do you want to use simulation? You might want to know, is your design going to be strong enough? Is a chair that you're working on going to buckle when somebody sits on it? Is this bridge that you're designing going to fall down when the cars drive over it? What about an electronics component, is that going to overheat under operation? Can you make something with less material, could you save some material by designing it in a different way? And can you drop something and it still survive and not break?

These are just some of the questions that you might be thinking about when you're designing a part, and this is where simulation comes in. So you've had that idea about the thing you want to make. And then you've designed that in Fusion 360. And then you might go on to manufacture that, and then make it, and then you test it, and it doesn't work. And this is where a simulation comes in.

So instead of physically manufacturing that and testing the part, you can simulate it using Fusion 360 and get the results of that simulation. And it might be that your part isn't strong enough. So you can go back to the design, and then you can re-simulate that part. And you can go around and round in this circle as many times as you want, and you haven't wasted that material of manufacturing something that's not going to work. And then once you've got that result that you're happy with, you can then go on to manufacture it, and you'll have a successful part. So let's take a look at the simulation workspace in Fusion 360.

So this is the screen that you get when you go from the design workspace into the simulation workspace. And we can see that we've got all these various different types of study. And we're going to go through all of these today, except for the plastic injection molding, as that's brand new and still in preview mode. So let's jump into Fusion and have a look.

So this is Fusion 360. For those of you who haven't used it before, and we're currently in the design work space of this platform. Now say we had a very quick part, I'm just going to draw this very quickly, and let's say this is a shelf bracket that we're designing. So the shelf is going to sit on the top, and this is going to be attached to the wall. And we don't know if it's going to be strong enough, if going to break when we-- let's say we're 3D printing it. So we can go from our design workspace into our simulation workspace.

When you go in the simulation workspace in Fusion, the first time that you go into it from any design, you get the option box and [INAUDIBLE] And you can choose which of the simulation types that you want to do. So in this case, we'd be wanting to do a static stress simulation. And if you click on each of the options, it gives you a little brief about what that type of simulation can do. And if you're not sure what you want to do, you can use the help me choose a study type. So if you click on that, you then can use these questions to help you choose which type of study that you need to do.

So in this case, we want to see if the design is going to fail when we apply a static load to it. So that would be the top one. But if we were looking at different ones, then we can use these descriptions to help us choose which study we want to do. So we just want to do that basic study for this one, and then you would create your study.

Now, in the simulation workspace, it works to guide you through the process from left to right, across the top. So we've already chosen our study type. In this case, we don't need to simplify anything. But if you had a complex assembly and you'd modeled lots of threads and bolts that weren't actually going to influence your design, you might want to simplify those and remove them from the simulation, but not from the actual design workspace.

And the reason you might want to do this is because for each surface and component in a study, the calculations that the software does to solve that are-- well for each one it has to do a calculation at every single point. So if the component you're thinking about isn't going to influence your decision, then you can remove that and your simulation will solve more quickly.

The next thing you want to do is set up your materials. So just always work from left to right, across the top. So in this case, we've got a steal for our model in the model workspace. But say we wanted to make this from maybe a plastic-- so we could choose ABS plastic and then click "OK' there.

The next thing you want to do is set up your constraints. So if this was a shelf, we want to constrain this back face to the wall, and you can choose your different types of constraints there. And then you apply your load to the top. So I'm just going to guess a number here. So let's say 60 newtons, which is about six kilos, on that shelf. We don't need any contacts in this case, because it's just a single component. But if you're doing an assembly, you have to tell Fusion how the components and bodies that you've got are going to interact with each other. So you don't want that part, being able to move through another part.

For the display, this is showing the mesh. So this again, is linked to how long a study takes to solve. So the finer your mesh, the more accurate and true the results will be, but the longer it will take to compute, as for each triangle point on the mesh, it needs to perform a calculation at that point. So you'll get more calculations, your results are more accurate, but it will take longer to solve. In terms of manage, this is where you can find all your settings that you want to set up in terms of mesh refinement, things like that.

And then in this solve box here, we've got the pre-check. So this tells us, have we given the study everything that we need to do in order for it to solve? So we might have set the constraint, but we haven't applied a load. Then it would be like, hey, you haven't applied the load. Do you need to do that before you can solve the study? And then when you're ready, you can just press solve.

Now, there's two options with most of the simulation types. So you can either solve them on the cloud, which requires cloud credits, or you can solve a simulation locally. If you do that, you do need to download an additional bit of software and it will use your computing power. The thing I love about the cloud solve is that you can press "go" and just send that off to the cloud, and then you can get on with other things. It's not using your computer power, and you can actually set up other simulations that can be solved in parallel with those other ones that you've set up.

So when you're ready, you just press "solve study." I haven't saved the file, so I'll just save this as "bracket". And we can see that that is now in the cloud. And we can just close that and let it solve in the background. If you ever need to check the status of any job you've got going, you can click on this solve status here and you can inspect what's going on. So that's being sent to the cloud, and it's currently being solved in process.

Once you have your results, they'll appear automatically on the screen. And there's various different tools that you can use to analyze the results. So in this case, we've got a load case, the safety factor, showing. We can inspect the stress, the displacement, the reaction force, and the strain. So for example, you might want to look at the displacement on a shelf bracket. So how much is it going to displace? And we can see that this maximum value here is 0.14 millimeters.

But if you look at the visuals of that, it is much further displaced. So you can actually change the deformation scale up here along the top. So you can actually set that to "actual", and you can see that in this case, this shelf bracket would be pretty sturdy with not very much deflection. The adjusted scale is really useful for being able to see what's going on, and looking at those results.

There were various inspection tools that you can use in the results workspace. So we can use the "hide MiniMax", so that's the minimum and maximum that we've got showing there. We can use surface probes to look at the, well in this case, the displacement across the surface at different points. You can also create slice planes. So you can put a plane through a surface.

And then you could use a point probe to look at the stress inside a part as well. And that gives you the coordinates of the point that you're looking at as well.

If you've done more than one study, you can use compare to compare two results at once. And finally, we've got our results tools, so we can animate our results. So we can do an animation, and it shows what happens over time. And you can see that deflection happening on the deformed scale there. And if we want to delete those, you can just press "delete" on there.

And finally, you can create a report. So this will appear in your web browser, and you can choose what you want to include. So we've only done one study in this case, and this will show us what's going to be included on that.

So if we click "preview", and that study report appears in your browser and. You can see all of the information about the part, and all of the settings that you use to set up that study, what constraints you put on, what loads you put on, and it gives you a full breakdown of all the results within that part. So you can see the stress and the displacement that we've got there.

So let's jump back to the presentation and have a look at the different study types, and why you might want to use them. So let's start with static stress. So in Fusion, it says that static stress is to analyze the deformation and stress into the model from structural loads and constraints, which isn't very helpful if you don't really know what you're doing. The little help things says to see if the design will deform excessively, or fail from the physical loads applied to it, which is a little bit more helpful.

So what do we use static stress for? So static stress is when you have an object that is going to be static. So it's going to be strained in one place, and you're going to apply a fixed load to it. So things like applying a force to a spanner or a shelf bracket. And this is when you know that deformation is going to be quite small. It's not going to deform beyond its elastic point.

So when you think about material science, a lot of materials, when you deform them, they'll return back to their original shape. And if you've got a material that's going to deform beyond that point, so it's going to permanently deform, then you want to be looking at a nonlinear stress simulation. But we'll come onto that in a moment. And the results and things that you'll get from a static stress are things like deformation, stress, and strain.

So let's move on to Modal Frequencies. So modal frequencies are used to determine the modal frequencies of the model, which again isn't all that useful. So it's when we want to find the natural frequency, and the shapes of an object as it vibrates. So the results you get from that are the modes of an object. So think about a ruler if you hold it against the edge of a desk, and then ping the end, and it vibrates. So modal frequencies can be used to find the natural frequency of an object.

So this is really important in engineering with things like engines. So you need to know what the natural frequency is to avoid it, because when something vibrates at its natural frequency, it's going to shake itself apart. So we have vibrations all around us, so engines, the vibrations on the pavement when we walk. So if you were designing a bridge you need to make sure that it's not going to vibrate when people walk over it, and things like that. And these results that you get, you can see those different shapes of vibration that you'll get with an object.

Moving on to the Electronics Cooling simulation workspace. Now, this is still in preview mode, but it has been around for a little while now. And this is really great when you're wanting to work out the temperatures of components in electronics, components and things. So this says to, "determine whether your electrical bodies will exceed the maximum allowable temperature given natural air convention or a forced air flow fan,"

So when you're designing things like PCBs and you've got the components in there, this is when you want to be using this type of simulation. So to check that they're not going to overheat, and whether or not you might need a cooling fan in something like a gaming console. And that's just the demo help section. And this here is just another summary of that simulation workspace.

So the sort of results you get from that are-- you can see that this here is piece B component with a fan at the end. And you can get things like this section view, and you can work out the temperatures across the board with the airflow. You can look at the load cases. You can see the temperatures and if any components are going to be critically too hot. And there's loads of different options.

The reason I'm showing the results on this one is that the results for electronics cooling display a little bit differently to all the other workspaces, like the demo I showed you with the static stress bracket just before. So this one, you can explore the different components on the left hand side. And you can change between what you're wanting to view in the top bar. So whether you're wanting to view those critical components, or the airflow, or a section flow.

Moving on to thermal analysis, thermal simulation. So you want to see if the temperature distribution throughout the design when it's heated or cooled. So this could be for something like a pipe. So you want to see if the pipe is going to be insulated enough. So it might be a pipe in a building, and it's got boiling hot water through it, and you need to choose some insulation materials for that pipe to make sure that someone passing it or touching their hand to it isn't going to burn their hand.

You might want to explore different thicknesses of insulation. So you might already know what material you're going to use for that, but you don't know how thick it needs to be to make it safe. We've then got thermal stress. So thermal stress is similar to the thermal analysis, but this time you apply both temperatures and loads. So you get those results from the part. So we can see if this design will deform excessively, or fail when it's heated or cooled in combination with those loads applied to it.

So the example I've got here is for a pipe hanger. So imagine you've got a huge thermal pipe in a factory. And the pipe itself actually weighs a lot, and you are applying a thermal-- and it's obviously hot as well. So the results you get from this are not only your temperature distributions, like the picture we're showing there, but also the stress and strain in that component. So you can see how the loads applied to it-- So it could fail just because it's too heavy, but also when it's hot there's more chances of it failing because of that heat, as well.

Moving on to structural buckling. So again, the help on there says, "To determine the buckling modes of the model," which is all well and good if you already know what buckling is, and what you're going to do with it. So it's to see if your design will deform excessively, or fail from the physical loads applied to it. Again, not all that helpful.

So the example I like to use for structural buckling is if you've got something like a bar stool chair. And buckling is when you have a sudden change in shape of an object when it's subjected to compressive forces. And this usually happens when you've got a really long, thin object. So think about a tube of cardboard, like a cardboard tube for a wrapping paper. If you push the two ends together, it's not going to crumple down in some neat sort of formation. It will suddenly buck out to the side, and you'll get a big kink in that cardboard tube.

And that's a buckling response to compressive forces. And that's very different to your standard compression forces. So this here is an example of a bar stool. And you can put that load on the top, and then your results will show you where it's going to buckle.

There's two ways to use buckling infusions. So what you can do is you can either apply a known force, which will give you whether or not it's going to buckle at that point. Or what you can do is you can apply a load of one newton. And the results that you get will tell you the force at which that component will buckle. And, similar to the modal frequencies, there will be different modes of buckling. So you won't always get exactly the same. So it might buckle out to the right, or it might buckle out to the left, and various different options that you get with the results on that.

Moving on to Nonlinear Static Stress. So we've already mentioned static stress, and how you can use that for components that are only going to deform within their elastic region. So we want to use nonlinear static stress when the boundary conditions-- and we want to consider things like, the material is maybe going to deform beyond that elastic point. So what does that actually mean?

So we'll going into a little bit of science here. So if you've got a stress strain graph, if your part deforms when you apply a load to it, and then it returns to its original shape, that means it's in the elastic region of this graph. So this straight line graph bit that we've got there. And then, once it passes beyond that point, it goes beyond its yield strength. So that means it's deformed permanently.

So if you've got a spring, maybe. So if you deform a spring, and you apply some weights to the end of it, some mass, then there will be a point at which the mass you've applied means that the spring no longer goes back to its original length. And that's the yield strength of that. And if you're looking at applying loads, or deforming an object beyond that point, this is where you want to use a nonlinear static stress study.

Moving on to event simulation. So this is where you might want to use this to determine how your design responds to motion. So impacts - things like a bird strike test on fan blades, or a bullet hitting a wall. Those are kind of these sort of things. So you might want to do a simulation on dropping your phone on the floor. Is it going to break? That sort of thing. So yeah, if we dropped our phone, is it going to smash into 1,000 tiny pieces? Hopefully not, but it does happen.

So here's a few examples that you could do for an event simulation. So a snap fit connector, so something like a buckle, or something on your bag like that. a wall impact, so that could be a bullet hitting a wall, or a hockey puck hitting the back of a goal board, or something like that; and the really cool thing about event simulation in Fusion is that you can set the parts to actually break apart.

So if we look at that tensile test example down there on the bottom right, the one on the left-hand side is where I've set the component to actually allow breakages of the elements in that mesh, when we do the study, to break apart. And the one on the right-hand side is the point before it breaks. So we think back to that graph I just showed you. So it's where it's reaching the yield point. It's in that top curve of the graph. And then the point on the end of the graph where it snaps, that's the breaking point. And that would be what you get on that little left-hand picture with the tensile test down there.

So, Shape Optimization. This is the last study type in the simulation workspace in Fusion that I wanted to talk about. So shape optimization is to make your parts lightweight and structurally sound based on the loads and the boundary conditions that you apply to it. And what that means is, you can take a part that you know is going to work, and you can minimize the weight of it-- so how much material it's going to use-- by removing non-critical material, whilst making sure that it's going to still pass the loads that you have defined for it.

Before we go into some examples of why you might want to use shape optimization, I first wanted to just touch on generative design, and the differences that you have in your options for using shape optimization and generative design. So a lot of people use topology optimization, generative design, and shape optimization all interchangeably. But in Fusion, they actually mean different things.

So shape optimization is where you start with a known object that you know is going to work, you know it will pass the load tests. And you already probably know what material you're going to use, and the manufacturing method that you're going to use for it. And then we put that into the shape optimization simulation study, and we apply our loads. And we say that we want to, maybe, minimize mass. And then we press "go", and we will get one result out of that, which is this sort of weird, "organic-y" looking type object on the right-hand side at the top there.

And you can then take this object-- I guess if you want to use additive manufacturing, you could produce that exactly as it is. But what you really want to do is use this to influence your design, so see areas where you don't need to use that material, And where you can maybe go back and redesign your part to match that.

Generative design is similar, but you start with a very open-minded outset. So you go, these are all the different materials that I might be able to use, and these are all the manufacturing methods that are available to me. And you can set up various different load cases. So it's not just that single load case, like in shape optimization. And what you get is a multitude of results from that. So there will be one ideal organic part, such as the one I'm showing there on the right-hand side, which might not actually be manufacturable, but it could be possible.

And that's sort of the difference you get with shape optimization and generative design. So looking at an example of that could be for a robot gripper arm. So you might set this study up. You already know where it's going to be constrained, around those top two bolt holds there, and we know that the force is going to be applied to that surface, that flat surface, where the pincers would grip together.

And this is a candidate that you could use for either shape optimization or generative design. And the one you'd want to use shape optimization for is, if you already know that we're going to make it, say, using a CNC machine, and we already know that it's going to be made from aluminium. We already know the load applied to it, so there wouldn't really be much point in using generative design, because you've already limited yourself in those constraints.

Whereas, if this was a very open-ended design, and you were just exploring different ways that you can make this robot, then that would be, maybe, the case where you would use generative design. So you could say, I know it's got to be able to pick up this load, and it's got to be fixed in these two points. Everything else is completely free-for-all.

So before we finish up, I'll just give you a very quick demo of where you can find the generative design workspace in Fusion, as this is a little bit different from the simulation workspace in Fusion. So inside Fusion, in the design work space, if you want to explore generative design, if you have that option, instead of going to the simulation workspace like we did before for all the other study setups, you would go from the design workspace. And there's actually a separate workspace for generative design.

So you click on that workspace, and that would take you into the setup for generative design. And it's very similar to the simulation workspace. There's a guide here that you can use if you're not sure where to go. But essentially, again, just work from left to right and follow it through until you get to the solve point.

The other great thing about this is you can actually apply various different load cases. And it will compute the result based on all of those load cases, compared to the simulation workspace where you can only have one load case at a time. So that's where you'd find generative design in Fusion 360 if you did want to have a look at that.

So thank you very much for joining me for my talk today. Hopefully, you've learned a little bit about the simulation workspace, and why you want to use each of those simulation types, and where you find them. Hopefully, you've sort of got the hang of the workflow that you would use to do a simulation in Fusion, and why those results can be used in your design methodology. And in fact, why they should be used quite early on when you're designing a part.

If you've got any questions, then please reach out on my speaker page. I'll get back to you on there. And you can also leave a comment. If you really like this class, then please like it, recommend it. And if you've got any further questions-- and please do feel free to reach out on my social media profiles, which are linked down there below, again.

So thank you very much, once again. And I hope you enjoy the rest of your AU.