I'm doing a study on a basketball hoop system with springs to compensate for the efforts during a dunk. My goal is to carry out a design study on solidworks to obtain a curve of the displacement as a function of the applied force. I know that the real system is crazy to trigger (the springs) from 80kg. The curve should therefore have a plateau up to 800 N and then a linear trend when the springs are in compression. On solidworks in static simulation, I use spring connectors in compression and I only modify the stiffness. I then run the design simulation and get a completely linear curve, without any steps. Is it possible to account for the non-linearities of the spring without having to draw it completely? Can I show with spring connectors that the system does not trigger before the application of a certain effort?
If your design is similar to this: Spring basketball hoop for outdoor use So the only thing that should be missing in your simulation is the preload of the springs. They are pre-compressed so that the basket will only start to tip over WHEN you have an effort greater than 80kk at the end of the basket. A lever arm ratio calculation should give you this spring calibration effort. Above this effort, the spring will start to compress more than its initial pre-compression and the basket will start to tilt. You can enter a precompression on the springs in simulation:
... (21st century style?)