Connectors

New Features

Connector Options for Automatic Reaction to Physical and Calculation Changes

You can now specify how connectors should automatically behave to link or property changes. Two new preference options have been introduced to control the behavior of the connectors when a change is applied that affects either the physical realization of the connection or the calculations that describe it.

Enhancements

Fastener Consolidation

All Fastener realizations have been migrated to a few default types:

Table 1.

New Name	Old Name
Hole	bolt (BEAM44), bolt (CBAR), bolt (LINK10), bolt (b31), bolt (general), wagonwheel, bolt (washer 1 alt), bolt (washer 1 alt) LINK10, bolt (washer 1), bolt (washer 1) BEAM44, bolt (washer 1) LINK10, bolt (washer 1) cbar, hinge (b31), hinge, bolt (washer 2 alt), bolt (washer 2) LINK10, bolt (washer 2), RgdBody (spider), ConNode (spider), RgdBody (spider + washer), bolt (edge collapse Rigid), Clip, bolt (spider), bolt (collapse Rigid), bolt (spider)
Cylinder	bolt (cylinder bar), bolt (cylinder rigid), bolt (cylinder spring), HC cylinder rigid bolt, HC cylinder spring bolt, BUSH cylinder, bolt (2 cylinder rigid)
Step Hole	bolt (step hole)
Threaded Step Hole	bolt (threaded step hole)
Rigid Patch	Rigid Patch
Clip	bolt (Metal Clip)
Solid	bolt(solid)

Pretension is now available for all Fastener types.

The realizations are fully customizable from the Control Manager. You can explicitly define the type and number of elements in the body of the realization.

Hover over images are available in the Entity Editor to indicate what the option will do.

Absorption is now driven by the Control rather than by the Type of the realization.

Joint Element types are now available in Optistruct.

New Methods have been added for Connectivity to Solid holes allowing you to further tune the realization.

Connector Graphics

The Connector Graphics have been overhauled.

There should now be significantly improved Frame rate when zooming, panning, and adjusting models with large numbers of Connectors.

RBE3 Weight Calculation

The calculation method for the weighting for all Distributing type elements (RBE3, COUP_DIS) has been normalized across all of the realizations.

Realization Improvements

The Width Inline with Edges option is now available for all Hexa based Line Realizations.

CGAP has a new mixed mesh dependency option for the CGAPG to Element.

Area is now available as an alternative to the Diameter for Hexa realizations.

Force Nonnormal/Nonnormal has been renamed to Flange Condition and the attributes are now On as default.

Resolved Issues

• The Use 2nd Projection attribute is now being reset when using Const Thickness.
• Huth Based realizations now support Collector Prefix.
• Metadata on the Connector is being now retained when saved as a Part Representation.
• Deprecated Keywords have been removed from Element types in realizations.