{"id":457,"date":"2012-08-13T15:22:07","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T14:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/?p=457"},"modified":"2013-08-13T17:15:53","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T16:15:53","slug":"how-to-use-the-bolt-connector-in-solidworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/08\/how-to-use-the-bolt-connector-in-solidworks\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use the Bolt Connector in SolidWorks"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you analyze assemblies of parts that are joined by bolts or screws, you probably know about the \u201cBolt Connector.\u201d In SolidWorks<\/a>, Bolt Connectors are a very efficient way of representing the bolt\u00a0 stiffness, and compression due to pre-load, on the bolted components.<\/p>\n

The Bolt Connector account for these effects mathematically in the\u00a0 solver, which spares you from having to build physical models of all the\u00a0 fasteners, then apply boundary conditions to them, create local\u00a0 mesh controls on them, etc.<\/p>\n

But because there are so many effects that the Bolt Connector can account for, the creation dialog is a very busy place:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a> If you have a lot of bolt-holes that are the same size, as pictured\u00a0 above, you had better hope that the plate designer took advantage of the\u00a0 Feature Pattern command.\u00a0 If so, then once you have created a Bolt\u00a0 Connector on any one hole, all the other holes in the pattern will\u00a0 prompt you if they should automatically get the same connector\u00a0 information. That is very expedient.<\/p>\n

But, what if your geometry was imported thru the STEP standard, or\u00a0 IGES, and has no feature information? Or, what if the designer \u2018cheated\u2019\u00a0 his hole pattern by creating it as a single CUT whose sketch was just a\u00a0 lot of\u00a0 circles? This actually happens pretty often. And unfortunately,\u00a0 this means that a new Bolt Connector will have to be created on every\u00a0 circular edge. This could get to be very tedious.<\/p>\n

So, start by filling out the complete dialog for only one Bolt\u00a0 Connector. Hit GO, so that you are returned to the Simulation feature\u00a0 manager. Then right-mouse-click over your first Bolt Connector feature, and\u00a0 choose COPY. Right-mouse-click again, over the folder for all of the\u00a0 CONNECTORS, and hit PASTE.<\/p>\n

Copy\/Paste as many new instances of the Bolt Connector, as you have\u00a0 remaining holes to be bolted. Then edit each one of these bolt\u00a0 connectors in turn. De-select the two prompts a the top of the dialog for the hole edges,\u00a0 and select instead a new pair of edges for a different bolt location.<\/p>\n

This will save you\u00a0 lot of time, because all the other prompts remain\u00a0 unchanged and do not even need to be reviewed. And by avoiding tedious\u00a0 repetition, you reduce the risk of reversed or omitted or otherwise\u00a0 fumbled prompts.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Keith Pedersen is Principal Engineer at CAPINC, a SolidWorks Value Added Reseller with locations across New England. He is a regular contributor to their CAPINC University blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you analyze assemblies of parts that are joined by bolts or screws, you probably know about the \u201cBolt Connector.\u201d In SolidWorks, Bolt Connectors are a very efficient way of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[19,23,37,25,26],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidworks","tag-cad","tag-design","tag-hints-tips","tag-solidworks-2","tag-support"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions\/1260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}