Connectors may be used to simplify behaviour without including a physical part such as a bolt or pin. This is a primer on the different types of connectors available in SOLIDWORKS Simulation.

Types of Connectors

Springs

There are 3 types of Springs:

• Compression Extension Spring: These are general purpose springs that generate forces as soon as parts connecting them start to move.
• Compression Spring: You can use them to model rubber bumpers or springs that provide a compressive interface when sandwiched between two parts.
• Tension Spring: You can use them to model cables or ropes that cannot take compressive loads but can significantly affect the overall stiffness under tension. 

Pin

An assembly consists of multiple parts connected to each other with pins, bolts, screws, or springs. Examples of assemblies with pins include laptops, scissors lifts, pliers, and actuators. To model the behaviour of such assemblies, traditionally, you have to create each pin geometry and apply contact conditions between the pins and their contacting faces, a computationally expensive approach. 

Bolt

A Bolt can connect two components, multiple components, or a component and the ground. You can define bolts through a mixed stack of solids, shells, and sheet metal bodies. You can also define a bolt by selecting entities of the same component.

Simulation models a bolt connector in a spider-like arrangement with (a) a beam element to represent the bolt shank, and (b) rigid bar elements to represent the nut and head parts.

Link

A Link ties any two vertices or reference points on the model by a rigid bar that is hinged at both ends. The distance between the two locations remains unchanged during deformation.

Edge Weld

The edge weld connector estimates the appropriate size of a weld required to attach two metal components.

The program calculates the appropriate weld size at each mesh node location along the weld seam.

Spot Weld

A Spot Weld connects two or more thin overlapping metal sheets at small areas (spots) without using any filling material.

Spot welds are most practical for joining metal sheets that are up to 3 mm thick. Internally, the program places a cylindrical spot weld connector of diameter D and height 0.5(t1+t2) between the meshed surfaces at the specified location.

Bearing

You define a bearing connector between split cylindrical faces of a shaft and cylindrical or spherical faces of a housing. You can use a bearing connector when the housing is not much stiffer than the shaft.

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