On the Structural Analysis in V5R11 I know how to apply a load and see the stresses. Is there a way to just define the place and type of load and allow Catia to calculate the max load until failure?
Not that I've come across.
Perhaps a script that runs the analysis until the calculated stresses exceed a certain value (Yield Strength, Von Mises, Principal Stress...)
CATIA V5 's solver, ELFINI is a linear solver. So if you have only one load, you can scale your results.
That means:
you computed a max stress of 200 N/mm2 for a load of 1000 N
then for a failure stress of 250 N/mm2 you have to apply X N
X = (1000x250)/200 = 1250 N
You can verify that by changing the load and re compute your analysis. The new computation only takes a couple of seconds if you didn't already deleted the CATAnalysisComputations.
Don't forget to use parabolical tets and to verify the precision of the computation (mesh size fine enough?)