Last year, the SOLIDWORKS Simulation Associate exams were carried out in Khmelnytskyi National University for the first time, and it was the first time among the students of the engineering specialties in Ukraine – with the goal to verify their knowledge of modern methods of calculating machines and structures for strength. This year, in January, during the winter exam session, such exams were also carried out for our postgraduate students of the “Applied Mechanics” specialty, who became the first such postgraduate students in Ukraine that successfully passed such exams. Knowledge of such methods is an important tool that provides the necessary grounds for conducting research for postgraduate students.
Our University has a status of SOLIDWORKS Academic Certification Provider since 2009 from the world leader of Computer-Aided Design software – Dassault Systémes (France), we also have 19 years of experience in implementing SOLIDWORKS software in the academic process. Today, our university has the largest number of official SOLIDWORKS certifications of the students among higher education establishments in Ukraine. Besides our university, several other Ukrainian universities received the right to carry out SOLIDWORKS certification exams in recent years, but in the most cases they carry out only 3D modeling exams for the students in Ukraine.
For the second year in a row, our university conducts not only 3D modeling exams for our students, but also exams on engineering calculation in SOLIDWORKS Simulation, which is much more difficult task, as it also requires knowledge not only in SOLIDWORKS, but also in applied mechanics, material science and mechanical engineering.
During the autumn semester, the first-year postgraduate students of the specialty “Applied Mechanics” (academic group PMEH-24-1) studied the discipline “Methods of Design and Calculation of Machines and Structures” (lecturer – prof. Viacheslav Kharzhevskyi). As part of this discipline, our postgraduate students, in particular, studied modern methods of engineering analysis that are used to calculate the strength of machines and structures using the SOLIDWORKS Simulation software.
At the end of the course, the postgraduate students were offered to pass the international certification exams “SOLIDWORKS Simulation Associate” from Dassault Systémes to test their knowledge of both theoretical grounds and practical aspects of calculating machines and structures for strength. The same exams are taken by the students, including postgraduate students, at leading universities around the world.
The international certification exam SOLIDWORKS Simulation Associate (CSWA-Simulation) consists of 20 tasks, including 3 calculation tasks that must be performed directly using SOLIDWORKS Simulation software, as well as a number of theoretical questions that relate not only to the software itself, but to theoretical issues that were considered by graduate students in specialized courses, in particular in the discipline “Methods of Design and Calculation of Machines and Structures”. Classes and the exam were held at the SOLIDWORKS University Center (3-103).
The exam covered the following topics:
– theoretical grounds of mechanics of materials;
– Finite Element Analysis method (FEA), criteria for selecting the type of finite elements;
– the usage of various calculation methods, types of contacts;
– optimization of parts based on the results of strength analysis.
– calculation of sheet metal parts and welded metal structures;
SOLIDWORKS Simulation Associate certification exams were taken by all first-year postgraduate students of the PMEH-24-1 group (specialty – “Applied Mechanics”), in particular:
1. Bozek Roman;
2. Mykhailo Bialik;
3. Bohdan Hrebeniuk;
4. Oleh Svachii.
As a result, all postgraduate students successfully completed their exam tasks and received internationally recognized SOLIDWORKS Simulation Associate certificates:
It should be noted that to obtain the Simulation Associate certificate, it is necessary to score 70 points out of 100 possible, but our graduate students showed good results in the exam: in particular, Roman Bozek scored the maximum possible number of points – 100 (20 correct tasks out of 20, screenshot of the results – on the left), and Bohdan Grebeniuk – 94 points (18 correct tasks out of 20, screenshot – on the right).
So, today in Ukraine there are 13 certified SOLIDWORKS Simulation Associate specialists, but our university is currently the only university where the certification of students, not just educators, was carried out, which confirms the high level of their training. In the international SOLIDWORKS database, the statistics for Ukraine are as follows:
– 7 representatives of Khmelnytskyi National University.
– 2 educators from the National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”.
– 1 educator from the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorskyi Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”.
– 1 educator from the Lviv National University of Environmental Management.
– 1 educator from the National Aerospace University named after M.E. Zhukovsky “Kharkiv Aviation Institute”.
– 1 employee of the company Softico (the company is an authorized reseller of SOLIDWORKS in Ukraine).
An important aspect for organizing the academic process is the level of competence of educators, who are recommended to pass not only the basic level SOLIDWORKS certifications in Computer-Aided Engineering modules (Simulation Associate), but also the professional level – Simulation Professional. In addition, there is also separate professional exam on the usage of computational fluid dynamics methods (Flow Simulation Professional) – which is especially important for postgraduate students, since the corresponding functionality of SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation can be successfully used by them for research and numerical experiments.
For the professional-level SOLIDWORKS certifications in Computer-Aided Engineering modules, only 6 such successful certifications have been carried out in Ukraine for the moment, 5 of which were for educators from Ukrainian universities, in particular:
– 3 professional certification exams on CAE were passed by educators of Khmelnytskyi National University: Prof. Viacheslav Kharzhevsky (Simulation Professional and Flow Simulation Professional) and Associate Professor Maksym Marchenko (Flow Simulation Professional).
– 1 educator of the National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute” passed 2 professional certification exams on CAE (Simulation Professional and Flow Simulation Professional).
– 1 Simulation Professional certification exam was passed by an employee of Softico (the company is an authorized reseller of SOLIDWORKS in Ukraine).
Thus, today Khmelnytskyi National University is one of the leaders in Ukraine in the usage of modern SOLIDWORKS CAD/CAM/CAE technologies in engineering education in Ukraine.
Congratulations to our postgraduate students of the Applied Mechanics specialty on the successful SOLIDWORKS Simulation Associate certification, which confirms a high level of their professional knowledge. We wish them further success!
SOLIDWORKS Center, Khmelnytskyi National University