Defining Connectors

Choose an engineering connection method and connection.

Select the supports.

The following supports are valid:

Support 1: one or more faces or edges, a coupling, or a single point; or mesh groups containing faces, edges, or a node.
Support 2: one or more faces or edges, a coupling, or a single point; or mesh groups containing faces, edges, or a node.
To define a connector to ground, omit the second support.

Important: If one of the supports is a coupling, the other support must also be a coupling. Both couplings must be from the same finite element model or from two child finite element models.

Tip: You can right-click a support field and select Create Support to create a new point or to create a proximity, spatial, or manual mesh group containing the support objects.

You can use the context menu in the Connection Manager to reuse supports from an existing connection. However, you can only reuse supports if they meet the requirements of the current connection type.

From the Type options, select one of the predefined connectors or select Specify to define the translational and rotational behaviors separately.

Choose the Axis system definition type for the first endpoint.

If you specified the Local option, select the appropriate axis system from the model.

Specify the Coupling type:

Option	Description
Kinematic	Directly couples edge or face supports to the motion of a reference point.
Continuum distributing	Couples the displacement and rotation of the fastening points to the average displacement of the nodes.
Structural distributing	Couples the displacement and rotation of the fastening points to the average displacement and rotation of the nodes.

Click

to define additional connector behaviors.