Replace parts

Automatic volume meshing of purchased parts will result in overestimating the true stiffness of the parts.
Instead of manually defining missing equivalent stiffness for those parts, you can replace dummy parts by FE models from the Meshparts library.
This is how you can accomplish this:

Step 1: Define a new assembly for every new purchased part

Note: If this part was already processed in the past, then skip to Step 3.

  1. Select one part to replace in the model tree
  2. Right click and choose "Create assembly..." from the context menu
  3. Choose the directory where the new assembly will be created
  4. Enter the name of the new assembly (choose an uniqe, self explaining name)
  5. Click "OK". In the model tree, the dummy part will be replaced by the new assembly. The new assembly will contain the dummy part.

Step 2: Add part from the FE library

  1. In the explorer tree, open the online library https://www.meshparts.de/SpecialComponents or https://www.meshparts.de/StandardComponents.
  2. Browse to the needed purchased part.
  3. Drag & drop the part to the new assembly in the model tree.
  4. In the details area, expand the frame "Part offsets" and click on "Fit". Adapt part offsets if needed.
  5. Delete the dummy part from the new assembly.