Hi, can anyone help to please identify the orientation i.e. X, Y, Z, RX, RY, RZ directions of the compliant universal joint in the images attached? - (joint is as per front lower control arm unv joint from multilink template)

Tahsin Chowdhury_21670
Tahsin Chowdhury_21670 Altair Community Member
edited April 24 in Community Q&A

Image1 shows the joint definition and coordinate orientation and how it is oriented via two axes.

I've sketched three orthogonal directions and the joint is selected in the image -

1) one along the direction of the control arm to the knuckle hard point --> (is this X direction?)

2) one along the bushing axial direction (mentioned in image2), perpendicular to the 1) direction --> (is this Z direction?)

3) one that is vertical --> (is this Y direction?)

This is to ensure the bush stiffness is applied appropriately in the model

The joint definition is as per front lower control arm universal joint from multilink template

Thank you!

Best Answer

  • GTT Adam
    GTT Adam
    Altair Employee
    edited April 24 Answer ✓

    Hi Tahsin,

    The orientation of the compliant universal joint is shown in your images, but may be clearer when viewing the same assembly in the new interface (v2023.1):

    image

    The directions for X, Y, and Z are clearly displayed, so the Kx, Ky, and Kz stiffness and damping values should follow the displayed orientation markers.

     

    Hope this helps!

    Adam Reid

Answers

  • GTT Adam
    GTT Adam
    Altair Employee
    edited April 24 Answer ✓

    Hi Tahsin,

    The orientation of the compliant universal joint is shown in your images, but may be clearer when viewing the same assembly in the new interface (v2023.1):

    image

    The directions for X, Y, and Z are clearly displayed, so the Kx, Ky, and Kz stiffness and damping values should follow the displayed orientation markers.

     

    Hope this helps!

    Adam Reid

  • Praful
    Praful
    Altair Employee
    edited April 24

    Hi Tahsin - It looks like there are other markers at the same location in your model that makes it unclear on the directions. Deactivating those temporarily might help you visualize better the universal joint marker direction.

    Praful

  • Tahsin Chowdhury_21670
    Tahsin Chowdhury_21670 Altair Community Member
    edited April 23

    Hi Tahsin,

    The orientation of the compliant universal joint is shown in your images, but may be clearer when viewing the same assembly in the new interface (v2023.1):

    image

    The directions for X, Y, and Z are clearly displayed, so the Kx, Ky, and Kz stiffness and damping values should follow the displayed orientation markers.

     

    Hope this helps!

    Adam Reid

    Thank you so much!! I will need to use the latest interface!

  • Tahsin Chowdhury_21670
    Tahsin Chowdhury_21670 Altair Community Member
    edited April 23

    Hi Tahsin - It looks like there are other markers at the same location in your model that makes it unclear on the directions. Deactivating those temporarily might help you visualize better the universal joint marker direction.

    Praful

    Yes! Thank you so much!

  • GTT Adam
    GTT Adam
    Altair Employee
    edited April 23

    Thank you so much!! I will need to use the latest interface!

    Hi Tahsin,

    If this solved your issue, please mark the comment as Correct so that future Users can search efficiently for the answer.

     

    Thanks,

    Adam Reid

  • Tahsin Chowdhury_21670
    Tahsin Chowdhury_21670 Altair Community Member
    edited April 24

    Hi, thank you to both! I do now know the orientation of the LCA joints but still slight confusion as to how it is defined with regard to the plane definition. So to make sure no confusion I had a follow up question regarding the upper shock bush compliant joint as well -- the 00 image shows the confusion in the graphics.

    There are other markers from the jounce and rebound marker at the upr shk point which makes it difficult to see/understand the actual orientation but I have hidden them now after Praful's suggestion - (02 image) and understood the coordinate orientation of the upper shock bushing as per the image as follows:

    1) X-axis is along the axis of the shock to the shock lower bushing

    2) Z-axis is along the line to the ax point (and XZ plane defined)

    3) Y-axis orthogonal to the XZ plane and coordinate vector from shk upr point as shown in image

    Am I interpreting the definition of this compliant joint correctly?

  • GTT Adam
    GTT Adam
    Altair Employee
    edited April 24

    Hi, thank you to both! I do now know the orientation of the LCA joints but still slight confusion as to how it is defined with regard to the plane definition. So to make sure no confusion I had a follow up question regarding the upper shock bush compliant joint as well -- the 00 image shows the confusion in the graphics.

    There are other markers from the jounce and rebound marker at the upr shk point which makes it difficult to see/understand the actual orientation but I have hidden them now after Praful's suggestion - (02 image) and understood the coordinate orientation of the upper shock bushing as per the image as follows:

    1) X-axis is along the axis of the shock to the shock lower bushing

    2) Z-axis is along the line to the ax point (and XZ plane defined)

    3) Y-axis orthogonal to the XZ plane and coordinate vector from shk upr point as shown in image

    Am I interpreting the definition of this compliant joint correctly?

    Hi Tahsin,

    If I highlight the joints in the multilink suspension model, I do not see an upper shock bushing:

    image

    If we look at a macpherson assembly instead, we can see the following upper shock bushing compliant joint has its Z axis pointing to the lower strut rod point:

    image

    How it is aligned is shown in the Entity Editor, where only 1-axis (Z axis) is aligned. The remaining X and Y axis are arbitrarily aligned. However, you can change the type to 2-axis to also align a specified plane:

    image

     

    Hope this helps!

    Adam Reid

  • Praful
    Praful
    Altair Employee
    edited April 24

    Hi, thank you to both! I do now know the orientation of the LCA joints but still slight confusion as to how it is defined with regard to the plane definition. So to make sure no confusion I had a follow up question regarding the upper shock bush compliant joint as well -- the 00 image shows the confusion in the graphics.

    There are other markers from the jounce and rebound marker at the upr shk point which makes it difficult to see/understand the actual orientation but I have hidden them now after Praful's suggestion - (02 image) and understood the coordinate orientation of the upper shock bushing as per the image as follows:

    1) X-axis is along the axis of the shock to the shock lower bushing

    2) Z-axis is along the line to the ax point (and XZ plane defined)

    3) Y-axis orthogonal to the XZ plane and coordinate vector from shk upr point as shown in image

    Am I interpreting the definition of this compliant joint correctly?

    I do not see the images that you refer to here. But your interpretation is almost correct.

    Minor corrections is on 2) Z axis & 3) Y axis.

    The Z axis will be oriented such that a) the point or vector that it is referring to (in this case the ax point) lies in the selected plane (in this case XZ plane) and orthogonal to X axis.

    3) Y axis will be orthogonal to XZ plane following the right hand rule for coordinate systems.


    Just for learning, you can understand this better if you move the lower shock point or ax point arbitrarily from the default.