Hole Series in SolidWorks Simulation [VIDEO]

Imagine a manhole cover in a pressure vessel that needs to be bolted to a flange in the pressure vessel. This usually requires a number of bolts to hold the two pieces together. Furthermore, same type of bolts may be present in the assembly at various locations. Imagine having to define all these bolt connectors for a simulation. I am sure this is going to give nightmares to people trying to simulate multiple bolts using SolidWorks Simulation.

You will be happy to learn that SolidWorks Simulation has a smart feature which could reduce the effort in the definition of these bolt connectors.

To start with, all holes which use similar bolts have to be defined within the scope of the assembly using Hole Series feature. When a bolt connector is defined in SolidWorks Simulation using a hole that was created using a Hole Series, SolidWorks Simulation will automatically find the nut-side edge and the appropriate size of the bolt to be used for simulation. An added bonus to that, SW Simulation will also prompt you if you need to copy the same bolt over to all the holes in that were created in the same Hole Series. All the properties of the bolt connector are than copied over to all the holes that were created in the same series. The only exception is the tight fit. If you select the tight fit option, you need to redefine them for each hole separately.