Macro To Create Weld Connections Between Flexbodies
Altair EmployeeEvaluating connections between components is crucial for design analysis in engineering. This challenge spans various domains, including welds, electrical components, adhesives, snap fits, and more. While multibody analysis can be used to validate these connections, incorporating flexible bodies into the analysis can provide additional insights into stress and strain distribution around the connections.
Flexible bodies are linked through "interface nodes," which can be represented as RBE2/RBE3 elements. In systems with multiple connections, manually creating joints between each flexible body and interface node can be laborious. To streamline this process, a script has been developed to automate the task. This script examines the selected flexible bodies, identifies interface nodes with similar coordinates, and generates an API to establish a system of connections between these corresponding nodes.
Please refer to the overview below on how to incorporate this script in your MotionView model.
MotionView Model
Model contains two flexbodies that contain 8 connections (b_housing and b_display).
Open “Search_Interface_Nodes.tcl” in any text editor.
TCL Script
Both flexbodies are retrieved (will need to use the varname.flex).
Interface node coordinates are obtained and placed in a list through the get_nodes function (at top of script).
Both lists of interface nodes are compared and if they contain any similar coordinates, they will be sent to a new list.
A text file is created with MDL API that defines a new system with fixed joints between the two flexbodies at similar coordinates.
Run Script
In MotionView go to File -> Load -> Script
Select “Search_Interface_Nodes.tcl”
Open the TCL window in the view menu. You should see the location the txt file is created. Text file will be named “code.txt”
Update Model
Open “code.txt”
Copy file contents
Open .mdl file in any text editor.
Scroll to the end of the file.
Right before *EndMDL() paste the generated code.
Save the file under a new name. Example “Model_V2.mdl”
Open the updated model in a new MotionView session. Observe the new system with fixed joints added.
