In industries where safety, reliability, and compliance are essential, product validation is one of the most critical and expensive phases of development.

For engineering teams working on heavy machinery or industrial equipment, physical testing can consume up to 40% of development time and a large portion of the R&D budget.

But there’s an even greater hidden cost: the inability to explore more design options. The moment you commit to a physical prototype, you freeze the design and that limits innovation.

In my 10+ years as an applications engineer working closely with engineers through support and consultations in stress analysis and simulation, I’ve seen how this dependency on physical testing slows teams down.

I’ve worked closely with designers and engineers where delays and redesigns from failed physical tests led to missed deadlines and over expenditure. What I’ve learned is that simulation isn’t just an efficiency tool, it’s a way to change how teams make design decisions.

In this article, I’ll explain when and how to shift from physical testing to simulation, how to manage risk responsibly, and how tools like SOLIDWORKS Simulation and Simulia are helping engineers make smarter, faster decisions without compromising safety or compliance.

Physical Testing Can Hide Long-Term Failure Risks

In the food and beverage industry, I worked with a client who experienced a catastrophic failure on one of their machines – a shaft had sheared off completely after about a year of continuous cyclic loading.

Because the failure occurred well into the machine’s operational life, it would have been nearly impossible to catch using traditional physical testing. Reproducing the conditions would’ve required another 12 months and a full prototype rebuild, at significant cost and delay.

Instead, we used SOLIDWORKS Simulation to investigate the failure virtually. By running a fatigue analysis, we identified the root cause a stress concentration at the weld joint. The simulation highlighted weak zones that had gradually degraded under repeated load cycles.

I proposed several design modifications to reinforce the shaft geometry around the weld and redistribute the stress path. We tested each variation in simulation, confirming improved fatigue life before any physical changes were made.

This approach saved the client months of downtime and the expense of repeated prototyping. More importantly, it gave them confidence that future failures of this kind could be predicted and prevented early without having to wait for a real-world breakdown.

Virtual Testing Reduces Risk; It Doesn’t Replace Physical Testing

My stance has always been that simulation should never entirely replace physical testing. But if used effectively, it can significantly reduce how many prototypes you need, allowing physical tests to act as final confirmation rather than discovery tools. That shift alone saves both time and cost while increasing confidence in the design direction.

One customer I worked with manufactures large-scale industrial pumps for the mining sector. For them, efficiency is everything, small gains in pump performance translate into major operational savings. But testing these systems physically is expensive and time-consuming, with each prototype build requiring significant material and labour investment.

Their goal was to reduce the number of prototypes and speed up development cycles by relying more on simulation. I collaborated with their engineering team to run SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation on a range of centrifugal fan designs.

We used the tool to calculate key performance indicators like pressure, power consumption, and efficiency, critical values needed to develop accurate pump curves. After several design iterations, we selected one concept to prototype physically.

When the real-world test results came back, the data closely matched our virtual predictions. The pump curves from the simulation closely matched the physical test results, accurate enough to validate the model and build confidence in using simulation for future designs.

A Simple Framework to Shift from Physical to Virtual Validation

Most teams ask me: “When is it actually safe to replace a physical test with a simulation?”

Here’s the three-question framework I use with clients:

1. Is the physical behaviour well understood?
   If similar parts have been simulated and tested before, you likely have enough confidence to rely more on digital validation.
2. Can the simulation be matched to existing data?
   If you can calibrate the simulation using earlier test results, material curves, load paths, or failure modes, you’ll know it’s reliable.
3. Will simulation help make faster decisions without increasing risk?
   If simulation lets you eliminate bad options and narrow down your design before you build anything, it’s worth the investment.

Conclusion

Physical testing still matters. But doing too much of it, too late in the design cycle, is a strategic risk. Simulation if done right, helps you shift validation earlier, explore more options, and reduce both cost and time.

The key is not to think of simulation as a replacement, but as a filter. It helps you focus your physical tests where they’re needed most and gives your team the confidence to iterate faster, smarter, and more safely.

Here’s what I’ve seen work repeatedly:

• Teams using simulation early make better decisions and build fewer failed prototypes.
• Simulation supports innovation by allowing more design exploration under tight timelines.
• A structured approach, anchored in past data, validation checks, and regulatory awareness, makes simulation a reliable business tool, not just a technical one.

If your team is stuck in endless rework cycles, blowing R&D budgets, or hesitating to try new ideas, it’s time to rethink your testing strategy. Simulation isn’t the future. It’s the competitive edge smart teams are using right now!