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Design Simulation by the Numbers

Planning, checking and reporting finite element and motion studies that a reviewer can trust

Plan, build, check and report design simulations with hand calculations, restraint and mesh studies, frequency checks, test comparison and a clear release scope.

10 chapters · About 103 minutes · Free to read · Intermediate mechanical design

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KEVOS® LibraryENGINEERINGDesignSimulation bythe NumbersKEVOS® ORIGINAL BOOK10 CHAPTERS

About this book

Simulation inside a CAD package has made stress plots cheap. A useful answer is still expensive, because it depends on decisions the software cannot make: which question is being asked, which loads matter, how the part is held, how fine the mesh must be and what the result will be compared with. This book is about those decisions. It treats a simulation as an engineering calculation that has to be planned, checked and reported, not as a coloured picture.

It is written for designers and engineers who already build models in a parametric CAD system and have access to its static, frequency and motion tools. You should be comfortable with stress, strain, bending moments and the idea of a natural frequency. Each chapter introduces one stage of the work, applies it to the running case with real numbers and ends with an exercise and its worked answer. Read the chapters in order the first time; later, the checklists and exercises stand on their own.

The running case

The book follows a fictional gearmotor mounting bracket for a belt conveyor. A 32 kg gearmotor hangs at the end of a steel arm, 250 mm from the face of a base plate bolted to the conveyor frame. The first proposal uses a 12 × 50 mm flat bar; hand calculations in Chapter 2 reject it, and the rest of the book analyses a 50 × 50 × 5 mm square hollow section welded to a 10 mm base plate. The loads are the motor’s weight with a dynamic allowance, a sideways belt pull and the reaction torque at start-up. The acceptance criteria limit stress, deflection at the motor flange and the first natural frequency.

All dimensions, loads, criteria, software results, test readings and costs are invented for teaching. This is an illustration. They are not KEVOS® projects, measured data or performance claims, and the simulation results quoted are worked teaching values, not output from a named product.

Source limits and professional responsibility

The supplied CAD textbook informed the choice of topics. The method, the case, the calculations and the figures are original, and the formulas used are standard mechanics checked against the references listed. Software menus are not described, because they change between products and releases; the decisions are the same in all of them.

This book is educational. It does not replace design codes, product standards, manufacturer data or the judgement of a competent engineer. Lifting equipment, pressure equipment, structures and safety-related machinery have their own requirements and approval paths, and a real bracket of this kind would need its loads, welds, bolts and fatigue life checked against them. Use the method here to ask better questions of a model and to record better evidence; let qualified review decide whether a real design is fit for service.

Who this book is for

Mechanical designers, CAD users and engineers who run simulation inside a CAD package and need results that survive review, testing and a change in the design.

What you will learn

  • Write an analysis plan that states the decision, load cases and acceptance criteria before any model is built.
  • Bound every simulation result with hand calculations for stress, deflection, mass and natural frequency.
  • Choose restraints, loads and meshes deliberately, and show convergence with a numerical study.
  • Read stress, frequency and motion results correctly, including singularities and the limits of linear analysis.
  • Compare predictions with a test and report a simulation with a defined, defensible scope.

Inside this book

Chapters

  1. 01Start with the decision, not the modelWrite an analysis plan that names the design decision, the load cases, the acceptance criteria and the evidence a reviewer will need before any mesh is made.
  2. 02Bound the answer by hand before you meshUse beam theory, section properties, mass and a one-mass frequency estimate to predict each result, reject a weak design early and catch unit errors.
  3. 03Prepare geometry that answers the questionTurn a manufacturing CAD model into analysis geometry by removing irrelevant detail, keeping stress-raising features and choosing beam, shell or solid idealisation.
  4. 04Give the model the right materialKnow which material properties each analysis uses, where to get them, what linear elastic models cannot represent and how a wrong modulus hides in a stress plot.
  5. 05Apply loads and restraints honestlyRepresent bolted supports, motor mass and torque realistically, prove equilibrium with a reaction check and catch loads that were applied several times over.
  6. 06Prove the mesh has convergedRun a mesh refinement study, estimate the converged value with Richardson extrapolation, report a grid convergence index and recognise a singularity that never converges.
  7. 07Read stress results without fooling yourselfChoose von Mises, principal or Tresca stress for the question, benchmark the solver, read averaged and unaveraged results and judge margins against the criteria.
  8. 08Check stiffness, frequency and bucklingUse modal analysis to keep the bracket away from resonance, check each mode against a hand estimate, test sensitivity to the frame and use buckling results with caution.
  9. 09Use motion, thermal and flow studies as load sourcesDerive loads from a motion study, check them by hand, apply temperature with the right restraint and decide when a flow study earns its place in the plan.
  10. 10Validate, report and release with a defined scopeCompare predictions with strain, deflection and tap tests against limits set in advance, avoid tuning the model to fit, and write a report a reviewer can check.

Apply This in Practice

Use these KEVOS® tools to try the method from this reading with your own numbers.

References and source notes

The manuscript and worked examples are original KEVOS® writing. References inform particular concepts; their authors do not endorse this book. Web references were consulted on 26 October 2026.

  • Ibrahim Zeid. Mastering SolidWorks: The Design Approach, second edition (2015). Pearson Education, publishing as Peachpit. Supplied source, reviewed for its subject map of analysis tools, mass properties, motion studies and finite element analysis inside a CAD system. No text, tutorials, figures, examples or problems are reproduced, and this book follows its own sequence and case.
  • David Roylance, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, via LibreTexts. Mechanics of Materials (Roylance) (online edition). Reference for beam stress and displacement (chapter 4), the stress concentration factor of 3 at a circular hole in a large plate (section 5.1), an introduction to finite element analysis (section 5.3) and the Tresca and von Mises yield criteria (section 6.1).
  • NASA Glenn Research Center, NPARC Alliance verification and validation tutorial. Examining Spatial (Grid) Convergence (online tutorial). Reference for the observed order of convergence, Richardson extrapolation and Roache's grid convergence index, with factors of safety of 1.25 for three meshes and 3.0 for two, used in Chapter 6.
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA-STD-7009B, Standard for Models and Simulations (2024). Named as an example of a published framework for model credibility, in which the effort spent on credibility matches the consequence of a wrong decision. Chapter 10 uses the idea, not the standard's requirements or scales.
  • ASME. ASME V&V 10, Standard for Verification and Validation in Computational Solid Mechanics (current edition). Named by number and scope only, as the solid-mechanics verification and validation standard a reader may meet. No content is quoted.

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