The Spot Weld Connectors option allows you to create bar elements from all nodes that lie on the specified part to a specified surface. The created connectors will be normal to the surface, so the surface elements may be automatically split in order to create nodes at the proper locations to connect the bars. If the nodes are aligned within a tolerance, the surface elements will not be split.
Spot welds support 3T welds, which are 3 plates being welded together. For a 3T spot weld, pick 2 parts as Target parts.
A spot weld is intended to be used in the middle of a surface. It can also be defined on a surface boundary, with the condition that the source points should split the curve at the surface boundary.
The following options are available for Spot Weld connectors:
- Spot Weld name
The part name is automatically generated, starting with SPOT_POINTS0.
- Source points
specify points which represent one end of the connectors.
Note: The source point must be embedded in the source surface and both must belong to the same part.
- Target parts
specifies the two parts that are to be connected.
- Connector Part name
The part name for the connectors is automatically generated, starting with SPOT_WELD0.
- Max projection
is a value is slightly greater than the maximum distance between two target parts.
- Weld options
Point to Point
creates a line element attached to the nodes of both surfaces, and normal to both surfaces.
Element Splitting
Remesh area (Tri/Quad)
remeshes the area of the spot weld after the mesh is created.
Terminate
terminates the split to keep the mesh count down and doesn’t give as many high aspect ratio quads, but it creates many more tri elements.
Propagate
propagates the split through the mesh until the propagation is stopped by a tri element or it exits to the ORFN region.
Mesh independent line
This is like the point weld, but the nodes on the two sides do not have to be forced into the mesh. Instead, any nodes in the nuggets area are connected to the line element through a second set of line elements for both sets of surface mesh. Typically, the first line element is defined as an RBE2 element in Nastran, and the second set of line elements on each side are defined as RBE3 elements, which have a weighting factor based on how close it sits to the node of the line element. If the leg of the RBE3 is approximately zero, it gets a weighting value of one, and if it is large the weighting value is approximately zero.
RBE3 Part Name
For a mesh independent weld, there is a weld element (that does not connect to the mesh), and connector elements that connect the weld element to the mesh. The connector elements to into the RBE3 Part. Typically, this weld is used for Nastran, where the line elements in this part should get an RBE3 Element Property.
Mesh independent hexa
This is like the line independent weld, but the base line element (RBE2) is replaced by a Hexa element with a thickness defined by the diameter. Each of the four nodes at each surface has a RBE3 connection from its node to all nodes of the nearest element. The Hexa elements typically get a rigid material property, and the line element connectors are weighted as in a line mesh independent weld.
Weld Radius
defines the weld diameter. The weld diameter (Radius * 2) would be equal to the diagonal of the Hex element for each face that is near the shells.
RBE3 Part Name
Contains the line elements that connect the Hexa element to the mesh. These line elements should get an RBE3 element property.
Area weld
An hourglass type of weld, where there is a nugget area or diameter, and a node in the center between the two surfaces meshes, where the center node is attached to any nodes within the diameter on either side. This is mesh independent, and the weld/line elements adapt to where the mesh is.
Weld Radius
The weld connects all the nodes on the defined parts within the specified radius to the central node.
- Active
if disabled, the connector will not be created when remeshing.