I’ve been trying my best to do some stress simulations in SolidWorks on a design I’ve made. My problem is that it rests between two rails with a weight bearing down on it and I can’t find how to simulate something just resting on an object without fixing it to a point in space.

I spent all this evening watching tutorials and reading on forums trying to get it right but have failed. I just can’t seem to find how to fix a model so that it is resting on some rails.

Here is a very simple example, the rod rests between the two bars and I want to apply force to the middle to see what happens without fixing the two ends in space as this will give an unreliable test.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/34354550572/in/dateposted-public/

Testing with it fixed is no problem but like this I cant do. Can anyone please help me with this? Just to be pointed in the right direction would be great.