The simulation package in fusion is pretty good for what it is. You don't have as fine a mesh control as standalone software, but that's really more an art than a science in getting it right.
The basic for any simulation:
Type of simulation
Materials
Constraints
Loads
Mesh
Simulate
Verification
Type of simulation is just as it sounds: What do you want to look for? Stress, natural frequencies (frequencies you need to avoid), Heat transfer through a component or assembly, or stress induced via temperature change are some of the simulations Fusion offers and what you'll need to decide on when you are ready to setup a simulation.
Materials are pretty straight forward. Pick the appropriate materials (if not already assigned) for the bodies in the sim. If you are looking at aluminum vs steel, or some plastic are all going to have a different reaction based on the chosen simulation. Consequently pay special attention to materials as there are many a material that are non-linear in their stress-strain relationships which automatically infer non-linearity to displacements (think rubber, polymers, some plastics, etc). Also non-homogeneous materials are a bit out of the simulation purview last I checked (CFRP, FGRP, etc) which I imagine might be a great idea station I will make about it--this is due to needing the ability to describe fiber orientation on different laminations and how stress is transferred through the fibers vs the matrix.
Constraints are perhaps the biggest and most important thing to pay attention to when setting up a simulation. Depending on what constraints you apply to the model the outcome will change. For instance when doing a thermal-stress analysis and attempting to accurately view the displacement of a bearing surface as it's heated requires a pinned and frictionless constraint less you hold a corner/two orthographic faces in frictionless constraints and forces the contraction/expansion from that corner. Obviously holding things fixed vs pinned vs frictionless depends on what you're trying to model and how the actual mechanization of the problem should look. The closer you get to reality, the more complex your model (which is not always a good thing).
Loads are pretty self explanatory; these are the force, pressure, temperature, etc that are applied to the model that force the model to deform or become stressed as it must comply with both the load and constraints. Point loads, bearing loads, and distributed loads are all important to think about when defining you simulation.
Meshing in fusion is fairly automatic; which is both a blessing and a bane. This is also the time that contacts between multiple bodies are either automatically defined or manually defined, though I haven't really worked with the latter. This allows the model to transfer stresses and displacements between bodies more accurately (gaps, sliding, mated/welded, etc).
And finally, simulating. Where you press run and everything either comes together or blows up. This is where easy errors can be found and fixed.
Verification is where experience or real world test data comes in handy. This is where stress concentrations will be found and it will be on you to figure out if they are accurate or if they are an artifact of the simulation. If the latter; you'll then need to go back through the simulation making the necessary adjustments to figure out how to make it better/more accurate.
Idea Station: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideastation-request-a-feature-or/add-advanced-materials-for-simulatio...
