Load Paths for Hierarchical Meshes
The way that you establish load paths in hierarchical meshes depends on whether you are working with unmeshed components or pre-meshed components:
• Unmeshed Components—Between a group of unmeshed components,
Creo Simulate recognizes load paths just as it would for a
flat mesh.
• Pre-meshed Components—Between a group of components where at least one component has a pre-existing mesh, Creo Simulate recognizes load paths only if you create assembly-level beam, or spring, idealizations or place rigid or weighted links to connect the components.
As a prerequisite for placing the
beam,
spring,
gap,
rigid link, or
weighted link, the pre-meshed component must contain
hard points on any meshed pieces of model geometry you want to connect. You can create the assembly-level beam, spring, rigid link, or weighted link at any time using datum points on your model. But, before you generate the component-level mesh, you must assign a hard point mesh control to the datum point. Otherwise,
Creo Simulate does not respect the beam or spring when you mesh the top-level assembly.
To understand how you create this type of connection more fully, you can review an
example.