Defining a surface on the pin

In this section you will define the outside surface of the pin. You will find it helpful to display only one part instance at a time while you select the surfaces to be defined.

This task shows you how to:

Hide part instances in the assembly

  1. In the Model Tree, expand the Instances container underneath the Assembly.

  2. Select the hinge pieces, and click mouse button 3.

  3. Choose Hide from the menu that appears.

    The hinge pieces disappear from the view.

Define a surface on the pin

  1. In the Model Tree, expand the Assembly container and double-click the Surfaces item.

    The Create Surface dialog box appears.

  2. In the dialog box, name the surface Pin and click Continue.

  3. In the viewport, select the pin.

  4. Click mouse button 2 in the viewport to indicate that you have finished selecting regions for the surface.

    Each side of the hollow cylinder representing the pin has a different color associated with it. In Figure 1 the outside of the pin is colored brown and the inside of the pin is colored purple. The colors may be reversed on your model, depending on how you created the original sketch for the pin.

    Figure 1. Select the region to be defined as the surface Pin.

  5. You must choose whether the surface consists of the inside or the outside of the cylinder. The outside surface contacts the two hinges and is the desired choice. From the buttons in the prompt area, click the color (Brown or Purple) associated with the outside surface.

    Abaqus/CAE creates the desired surface called Pin and displays it underneath the Surfaces container in the Model Tree.