Associativity that you apply to geometry attached from SpaceClaim or DesignModeler is maintained in the Mechanical and Meshing applications when updating the geometry despite any part groupings that you may subsequently change in SpaceClaim or DesignModeler. See Associativity for further information.
When transferring multibody parts from SpaceClaim or DesignModeler, the multibody part has the body group (part) and the prototypes (bodies) beneath it. When the part consists of just a single body the body group is hidden. If the part has ever been imported as a multibody part you will always see the body group for that component, regardless of the number of bodies present in any subsequent update.
Associativity
Associativity that you apply to geometry originating from SpaceClaim or DesignModeler is maintained in the Mechanical and Meshing applications when the geometry is updated despite any part groupings that you may subsequently change in SpaceClaim or DesignModeler. Types of associativity that you can apply include contact regions, mesh connections, loads, and supports. For example, consider the following scenario:
A model is created in SpaceClaim or DesignModeler and has six independent parts with one body per part.
The model is attached to Mechanical where loads and supports are applied to selected geometry.
In SpaceClaim or DesignModeler, the model is re-grouped into two multibody parts with each part including three bodies.
The geometry is updated in Mechanical. The loads and supports remain applied to the same selected geometry.
Note: This feature does not hold true for instanced parts in SpaceClaim or DesignModeler.
The associativity is maintained only with geometry attached from SpaceClaim or DesignModeler and Mechanical systems created in release 13.0 or later. To ensure that the data necessary for retaining associativity is present in legacy dsdb/wbpj databases, you should perform the following:
Open the Mechanical session and open the SpaceClaim or DesignModeler session. This will ensure that both the Mechanical and SpaceClaim or DesignModeler files are migrated to the current version of the software.
Update the geometry model without making any changes to the model. This will ensure that the new data necessary for associativity is transferred from the migrated DesignModeler file into the migrated Mechanical file.
You can now modify and update the geometry as necessary.