I'm on board with most of the changes to SOLIDWORKS Simulation in 2021 B1 but having this enabled by default is a puzzler to me. I wanted to ask if there is any insight as to why this change is being made?

I'm actually really glad about the existence of this option in Simulation Options now, as I've run into edge cases like very complex sheet metal assemblies where the automatic conversion takes some time.

That being said though - I have to imagine that most users want their sheet metal parts treated as shells. And it's a common enough technical support issue to see complaints of extreme solve times when treating sheet metal geometry as solid. I fear that with this option enabled by default that will only become more widespread

Is performance the main reason? Other performance impacting options such as Hide excluded bodies, Load all simulation studies when opening model, are still enabled by default.

In other news - I'm really impressed by the performance of the blended curvature based mesher so far. It seems even more efficient multithreading than the curvature based mesher (such as single part with very refined mesh density)