2010

With the stress analysis tools, you can:
■ Perform a structural static or modal analysis of a part or assembly.
■ Apply a force, pressure, bearing load, moment, or body load to vertices,
faces, or edges of the model, or import a motion load from dynamic
simulation.
■ Apply fixed or non-zero displacement constraints to the model.
■ Model various mechanical contact conditions between adjacent parts.
■ Evaluate the impact of multiple parametric design changes.
■ View the analysis results in terms of equivalent stress, minimum and
maximum principal stresses, deformation, safety factor, or modal frequency.
■ Add or suppress features such as gussets, fillets or ribs, re-evaluate the
design, and update the solution.
■ Animate the model through various stages of deformation, stress, safety
factor, and frequencies.
■ Generate a complete and automatic engineering design report in HTML
format.
Understand the Value of Stress Analysis
Performing an analysis of a mechanical part or assembly in the design phase
can help you bring a better product to market in less time. Autodesk Inventor
Simulation Stress Analysis helps you:
■ Determine if the part or assembly is strong enough to withstand expected
loads or vibrations without breaking or deforming inappropriately.
■ Gain valuable insight at an early stage when the cost of redesign is small.
■ Determine if the part can be redesigned in a more cost-effective manner
and still perform satisfactorily under expected use.
Stress analysis, for this discussion, is a tool to understand how a design
performs under certain conditions. It might take a highly trained specialist a
great deal of time performing what is often called a detailed analysis to obtain
an exact answer with regard to reality. What is often as useful to help predict
and improve a design is the trending and behavioral information obtained
6 | Chapter 1 Get Started With Stress Analysis