Creating Rigid Virtual Parts

A rigid virtual part is a rigid body connecting a specified point, the handle point, to specified part geometries, behaving as a rigid object that will stiffly transmit actions (restraints or loads) applied at the handle point, while locally stiffening the deformable body or bodies to which it is attached.

The rigid virtual part does not allow elastic deformation of the regions to which it is attached.

Rigid virtual parts can be applied to the following types of supports:

Point or VertexCurve or EdgeSurface or FaceVolume or Part
  

This task shows you how to create a rigid virtual part between a point and a geometry support.

  1. Click the Rigid Virtual Part icon .

    The Rigid Virtual Part dialog box appears, and a Rigid Virtual Part object appears in the specification tree under the Properties objects set.

  2. You can change the identifier of the virtual part by editing the Name field.

  3. Select a face or an edge of the part as a geometry support. You can select several geometry supports.

    The Supports field is updated to reflect your selection.

  4. Position the cursor on the Handler field in the Rigid Virtual Part dialog box and select a vertex or point as the handle point (the handle point symbol appears as your cursor passes over it).

    • This point selected as handle must be a Part Design point.

    • If you do not specifically select a point, the centroid (the point at which the lines meet) will be used as the handle point.

    • When several virtual parts share the same handle point, only one finite element node is generated.

  5. Click OK in the Rigid Virtual Part dialog box.

    A symbol representing the virtual part appears on the corresponding faces.