It's certainly tough to beat $20/yr but it could still be worth it to reach out and see if there are any options in your budget.
Senior Application Engineer
enginsoftusa.com
When you're dealing with non-trivial motion it's sometimes easier to use a particle method rather than a mesh based approach, they save a lot of time in preprocessing. This article gives an intro to how particle based methods work and why they can be better for this type of problem.
Senior...
I'm not familiar with the features in Abaqus but you may want to look into Discrete Element Method (DEM) for this type of problem. It's a lagrangian method which is conceptually similar to SPH but designed for things like sand and gravel. For example my company carries a product called...
Recurdyn could be a good option especially when looking at non-linear spring behavior like self contact, it handles large numbers of bodies well. They have toolkits for quite a few things including tires and springs, here's a page that talks about the spring one...
I might be too late but I agree with FEA way that DEM is the better method to use here. Several MBD solvers have co-interfaces with DEM tools so you can model the plow as a rigid (speed up the simulation) or flexible body (obtain deformation and stresses) depending on the physics you need to...
If you're talking about an undergrad degree I think the age old wisdom of "the fundamentals don't change" is good advice. Focusing on really understanding core principles and learning new technologies as they come up is what sets you up for success.
With that said I think learning a programming...
I work for a software sales company so I don't do much "real" analysis but I do spend a lot of time troubleshooting customer models and helping them with workflow so I'll offer some suggestions (in no particular order):
1) Make sure you understand what actually needs to be modeled. I see people...
It allows you to approximate a non-linear material property by a handful (8 if I remember correctly) of linear stress/strain curves.
Senior Application Engineer
enginsoftusa.com
I’m not an Adams user but I know that in a different MBD product (RecurDyn) I can auto-generate a track system (sounds like a similar process to creating your chain) and then convert all the links into general bodies. This should allow for arbitrary sprocket geometry by adding the contact...
