Chapter 1

The Dynamic Simulation Environment

Simulation overview

During a typical design process, designers go through a series of typical questions, such as: do the parts fit together? Do the parts move well together? Is there interference? Do the parts follow the right path? Even though most of these questions can be catered for by 3D CAD and rendering software, there may be other questions that cannot. For example, designers may want to know the machinery time cycle. Is the actuator powerful enough? Is the link robust enough? Can we reduce weight? All these questions can only be answered by building a working prototype or a series of prototypes. The major issues with this method are that it is timely and costly. An alternative cost-effective ...

Get Up and Running with Autodesk Inventor Simulation 2011 now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.