Strategy: Establishing Geometrically-Consistent Node Locations
You can use this approach to establish geometrically-consistent node locations for pre-meshed components in hierarchical meshes.
1. In assembly mode, create a datum point on a surface that opposes the two surfaces that will be in full contact. If there is no opposing surface, create a datum surface.
2. Project the datum point onto the two contacting surfaces. This should yield two datum points that are geometrically aligned.
3. For the pre-meshed component, enter part mode and create a part-level datum point at the same location as the assembly-level datum point. You can position the part-level datum point by using the assembly level datum point as a reference and entering an offset of 0, 0, 0.
4. Define the part-level datum point as a hard point and mesh the component.
5. Return to assembly mode and add a zero-length spring between the coincident hard point on the pre-meshed component and the datum point on the unmeshed component.
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The zero-length spring must be an advanced spring, and you must define its orientation using a coordinate system. If both components are pre-meshed, you create the zero-length spring using the geometrically-aligned hard points on each component.
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When you mesh the top-level assembly, Creo Simulate creates matching nodes wherever you placed the geometrically-aligned points. However, be aware that, while this process assures that the surfaces will have geometrically-consistent nodes, the surfaces may have different overall meshes.