Importing an assembly

A file from a CAD system, such as CATIA, can contain a single part or an assembly of parts. Abaqus/CAE allows you to select FileImport from the main menu bar and choose either Part or Assembly. Both options allow you to import all of the parts in an assembly; however, the end result is slightly different.

Importing parts

If you choose to import parts from a file that contains an assembly of parts, you can import either all of the parts from the file or only a specified part. If you import all of the parts, Abaqus/CAE creates a group of parts that corresponds to each part instance in the original assembly. To recreate the original assembly, you must use the Assembly module to instance each imported part. However, the relationship between the parts and the part instances in the original assembly is lost during the import process. For example, if the original assembly contained a bolt that was instanced nine times, Abaqus/CAE creates nine identical parts. When you recreate the assembly in the Assembly module, Abaqus/CAE creates a part instance for each of the nine bolts. Although the relationship between the parts and part instances is lost, Abaqus/CAE does retain the position of the parts. As a result, when you instance each part, it appears in the correct position in the assembly.

Importing an assembly

If you choose to import an assembly, you can import the entire assembly or you can import only selected part instances. Abaqus/CAE appends your selection to the existing assembly and retains the original positioning of the instances. In addition, Abaqus/CAE creates parts that correspond to the imported part instances and maintains the relationship between the parts and their instances. For example, if a bolt is instanced nine times in the assembly, Abaqus/CAE imports nine instances of the bolt but creates only a single part.

Importing an assembly also offers the following advantages:

  • In most cases Abaqus/CAE retains the names of the parts and the part instances from the original file.

  • If the parts and part instances in the original file were colored by the third-party CAD system, Abaqus/CAE retains those colors during the import procedure. For information about modifying the color coding, see Color coding geometry and mesh elements.”