Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

I need to graph the relationship between a load applied to an assembly and deflection at a certain point (I have a probe label there now). Is there any part of this process I can automate?

Right now I'm having to manually increment the load and type (!) the displacement into Excel.

One thing I tried was a user parameter to control the force applied so at least I could run all the simulations in one shot but apparently that's not allowed. Is that correct? Parameters used to control load magnitudes can't go in the Parametric Table?

Also is there another way to gather data on displacement other than using a probe lablel and reading values right off the screen? I can't find a way to pull data from the probe label other than with my eyeballs..

Thanks,

Jon C.

[#2]

<<One thing I tried was a user parameter to control the force applied so at least I could run all the simulations in one shot but apparently that's not allowed. Is that correct? Parameters used to control load magnitudes can't go in the Parametric Table?>>

Hi Jon,

  This is correct, the parametric (dimension) optimization functionality is restricted to leveraging geometric parameters only.

  What you can do is batch solve.  This will allow you to run all the simulations in one shot:

1)   RMB on the simualtion in the browser => "Copy Simulation"

2)   Then in the copied simulation(s) edit the load value

3)   After all the simulations have the different loads, select all the simulations in the browser => Simulate...

<<Also is there another way to gather data on displacement other than using a probe lablel and reading values right off the screen?>>

This is the only way I'm aware of.

[#3]

Actually this is the approach I ended up taking except that I reversed the model, inputting displacement and outputting resultant force (Reaction force at a constraint) as per this post. This at least removed the need for manual probe label reading and let me output my reaction force results via a Report into Excel.

It was still slow/cumbersone setting up/editing 30+ simulations to run sequentially. Being able to use a user variable for my input (the constraint 'offset' I used to give displacement) would have saved me hours of set-up time. Please consider that a feature request.

Thanks,

Jon C.

[#4]

Hi Jon,

  We have wishlist item 1451249 logged for your request to be able to leverage CAE parameters (loads, prescribed displacements, etc.) [Edit: in parametric optimization] for a future release.

  Glad you found a (albeit inconvenient) workaround for now.

We appreciate your time and feedback.