Creating coincident point connectors

In the Interaction module, select ConnectorCoincident Builder from the main menu bar to create a connector wire feature and section assignment for a group of coincident points. For detailed instructions on creating assembly-level wires features, see Adding a point-to-point wire feature.

Related Topics
Constraining two instances with coincident points

  1. From the main menu bar in the Interaction module, select ConnectorCoincident Builder.

  2. In the viewport, select the coincident points that you want to include in the connector wire feature, then click Done in the prompt area. For an overview of the methods you can use to select multiple points from the viewpoint, see Drag-selecting multiple objects.

    The Coincident Point Builder dialog box opens with the selected coincident points displayed in the Endpoints portion of the dialog box.

  3. If desired, customize the content and order of the endpoints you want to use by doing the following:

    • Highlight the row for any coincident point, and click to delete that coincident point pair.

    • Highlight the row for any coincident point, and click to swap the first and second points in the coincident point pair.

  4. Select a connector section. If desired, click to create a new connector section.

    The connection type is displayed in the editor. For basic, assembled, and complex connection types, you can click to see a schematic drawing of the connection type along with the Abaqus idealization of the connection. For MPC connection types the motion of the second point is constrained to the motion of the first point.

  5. If desired, modify any of the following orientation settings:

    1. Specify an orientation other than the global coordinate system for the coincident point connector wire feature in the CSYS 1 portion of the dialog box. If the selected connector section assignment allows you to adjust the second point in the connector, you can specify an orientation for the second point in the CSYS 2 portion of the dialog box as well.

      In either portion of the dialog box, click , then use one of the following methods to select the datum coordinate system:

      • Select a predefined datum coordinate system by name. Click Datum CSYS List from the prompt area, select a name from the list, and click OK.

      • Select a predefined coordinate system in the viewport.

      • For the second point in the connector, select Use CSYS 1 to use the coordinate system defined for the first point at the second point in the connector as well.

      The selected orientation is highlighted red in the viewport. The Coincident Point Builder reappears and displays a description of the coordinate system used for the orientation for the selected point of the connector.

      Tip: You can also create a new datum coordinate system by clicking from the CSYS 1 or CSYS 2 portion of the dialog box.

    2. If desired, you can specify an additional rotation about an axis of the datum coordinate system for either endpoint. Select the Additional rotation angle option for one of the points, enter a value for the rotation angle in degrees, and select 1, 2, or 3 for the About axis option. The Additional rotation angle option is available only if you specify a datum coordinate system other than the global coordinate system.

  6. Click OK to create the wire feature and the connector section assignment. Abaqus/CAE also creates a set containing the assembly-level wires.

    The original wire feature is renamed and suppressed. The modified assembly-level wire feature appears in the Model Tree in the Features container under the assembly using the same name as the original wire feature.