Tech Tip: How to Save Your Simulation Results in Onshape

If you’ve been using Onshape Simulation, you know that it works well for rapid, iterative design guidance. By integrating linear static structural and modal analysis directly into the assembly environment, Onshape provides a live, synchronized view of the design and its mechanical performance. Because it runs dynamically in your active modeling session, it instantly responds to changes you make, providing immediate feedback. This fundamentally democratizes structural analysis, allowing engineers to intuitively explore design choices rapidly.

Asynchronous simulation, on the other hand, allows you to run simulations independently of your active modeling session, unblocking your workflow so you can continue designing while the cloud-native engine handles the heavy lifting in the background. Further, asynchronous simulation results are persisted in the version history, so you are able to maintain immutable records of the simulations run.

What is Asynchronous Simulation?

Asynchronous simulation allows you to run simulations independently of your active modeling session. The results are permanently stored in your document's Results and history table, serving as a record of your design's performance at specific milestones.

Why Use Asynchronous Simulation?

• Unblock Your Workflow: Run simulations in the background without tying up your active modeling session.
• More Computing Power: Increases memory allocation for compute-intensive analysis compared to live simulation.
• Longer Run Times: Removes standard live simulation time restrictions (only times out if the analysis exceeds 24 hours).
• Batch Processing: Launch up to 50 consecutive simulations per user—perfect for comparative analysis across different configurations!
• Permanent Record: Simulation results are stored for the entire life of the Document.

How to Run an Asynchronous Simulation

To submit a job to the asynchronous queue, your assembly must be properly constrained, and your simulation must be set up. Once your model is ready, follow these steps:

1. Create a Named Position: Asynchronous simulations require a defined state. Create at least one Named Position for your assembly.
2. Create a Version: Asynchronous simulations must be run from a document version, not the main workspace. Create a version from the History panel.
3. Apply Your Settings in the Version: Open the newly created version. Apply your Named Position (right-click > Apply named position) and select your desired configurations and simulation.
4. Run the Simulation: Open the Simulation panel on the right, click the Results and history tab, and click the Run active simulation button.

Tracking Your Simulation Results

Once you click run, your job is sent to the queue. The Results and history table will display your simulation’s exact status:

• Queuing: Preprocessing steps are taking place.
• In Progress: The job is actively running (hover over the blue bar to see the completion percentage).
• Completed: Your results are ready.
• Error: Something went wrong (you can right-click to rerun).

Once complete, simply right-click the row and select Show results (or Show results in a new browser tab) to view your data.

In this Tech Tip, you learned how asynchronous simulation lets you run analyses in the background while preserving results as part of your document’s version history. Like everything in Onshape, there’s no need to manually save your work—simulation results are automatically captured and available whenever you need them.

To continue building your simulation skills, visit the Onshape Learning Center, where you’ll find courses and resources covering simulation workflows in greater depth.