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To see how Enventive helps engineers analyze force, consider the following example.

Government regulations specify a minimum force to open the door of a laundry dryer, which is secured with the latch mechanism shown below.

Although it is vital to meet the minimum force requirement, it is also vital that the force not be too high, making the door difficult to open. The optimal solution will reliably meet the minimal force requirement with minimal variation, because excessive variation may cause the force to be either too high or too low.

The Enventive model in Figure 1 was used to simulate the force on the door latch as the door was opened. The force diagram is shown to the right of the mechanism. The force will initially increase as the door is pulled. It is important to determine the variability of the force across the range of motion, and the point at which the force peaks.

Enventive enables engineers to rapidly analyze the force across the range of motion. The plot in Figure 1 shows the nominal force value as well as the +/- 3 sigma force variation due to tolerance variations. At the push of a button, Enventive is able to analyze the entire range in less than a minute.

Analysis results are recorded directly to Excel where they can quickly be plotted using tools provided by Excel. Excel is embedded directly in Enventive, and may optionally be run in its own window while maintaining its connection to Enventive. Excel is used for all tolerance analysis reporting, and may be used to drive Enventive models as well. Excel data is saved inside the Enventive data files.