Showing fasteners in aerospace Catia V5 assemblies 2

[l3ob]

I understand that we need to forget V4 when working in V5, but, it helps here to pose the Question.

In V4, to show fasteners in an aircraft assembly, I used dittos of a detail for that fastener anchored at a point and rotated to an axis at several locations (sometimes 100's of places). Modifing the one detail changed all its respective locations.

In V5, I've tried instantiating from a catalog. Each comes in at the origin and has to be constrained to each locations point and axis. The tree under the Product grows huge and the process takes more time when dealing with a large aircraft assembly rigged in space.

What is the preferred method in V5 to replicate the V4 process of 'rubber stamping' dittos using a catalog of fasteners?

 

[catiajim]

We create our driven fasteners (Rivets) in a "bogus" CATPart within the Product as points and lines. These fasteners are also treated as "As Required" on the P/L

If it is a part that actually has a quantity in the P/L, we instanciate it.

The only way that you could have moved all of the "where used" would be to have actually changed the part using Part Design. Moving an instance of a part within it's parent assembly should not effect any other assemblies. You had the same problem in V4 if you entered the workspace of the detail and modified something there.

 

[CATMANDO2]

You can use "REUSE PATTERN" if you used a pattern to define your holes in your mating part. You probably want to use the "PUT NEW INSTANCES IN A FLEXIBLE COMPONENT" option, this will create a pseudo-subassembly on the tree. Also use the "CUT & PASTE THE ORIGINAL COMPONENT" option, the original part will not be in the subassembly if you don't. Load the fastener, constrain it to the master hole in the receiving part. Click the "REUSE PATTERN" icon, set the options, select the fastener and the pattern. Your constaints will break, redo or reconnect them. I hear this works with an contruction model with just the pattern, but I haven't done this.

 

[l3ob]

Thanks CATMAND02,

the Flexible component works well. I instantiate a group of fasteners into the Flexible component and use the published axis and anchor point from the tree to locate each to the points and lines in space.

One other question for you. What's the best method to flip a fastener that comes in the wrong direction? If they were build in the catalog pointing '-Z', they will land on the surface generally in the '-Z' direction. If they need to point '+Z', I have to flip them. I've used the manipulate about a local axis with the 'Respect to constraints' off to rotate them around and then update, but, most of the time there won't be a convienient line locally to pick to rotate about.

 

[CATMANDO2]

Something I didn't mention, put your fastener groups in a subassembly. Bolt, washer, space, washer, nut. This works better on your tree. As for flipping parts after they are in place, delete the constraint(s), use the compass to reorient, reapply the constraints. If you don't know how to use the compass, I can't help you, too much to explain. The compass is very important and you need to know how to use it.

 

[catiajim]

Two difficulties that I see. Patterns work just great as long as all of the holes have parallel axis. If the holes lie on a surface (i.e. a wing skin), they don't work.

Also, Flexible sub-assemblies work just fine until you are working with a VPDM system such as ENOVIA VPM or LCA. They aren't supported in either system :-(

 

[CATMANDO2]

Flexable subassemblies are maintained in Teamcenter. But Teamcenter has bigger problems.

 

[catiajim]

That's because TeamCenter simply stores the CATProduct Document. VPM and LCA do not store the CATProduct, they store the contents, and then re-create the CATProduct on the fly. The huge advantage here is that you can load partial assemblies.
In fact, most of our engineers start at the top level assembly for the aircraft, and then dive down the product structure to get to the parts they want. That way, they are absolutely certain that the parts are in the correct position relative to each other. With a sub-product, you never know if some translation has occured to a node above your current assembly level.

 

[Delenore]

You can load partial assemblies in TeamCenter(TCe). There are different load rules you can apply. Alot of companies use TCe as mentioned in the previous post.

 

[catiajim]

Cool. I wasn't aware of that. I have talked to some TeamCenter users, and they didn't seem to be aware of that either.
We were a VPM user with V4, so using VPM with V5 was the logical choice for us.

 

[l3ob]

We haven't started using a data manager yet. I'm sure we will.
This 'Flexable' product works great for the fastener application. It keeps all the fasteners grouped within a node that can be calapsed, it can be read into another product, and you can leave them as cgm's for the graphics. So, will this cause us problems with data managers later? What's the options?

 

[catiajim]

As I mentioned, ENOVIA VPM (either V4 or V5) don't currently support Flexible Sub-assemblies, however they tell me that VPM V5 (aka LCA) will support them sometime in the near future.

Other data managers that simply take the CATProduct Document and archive it may have better luck, although they may not support other functionalities.

There are always trade-offs. My personal feeling is that your data manager should come from your CAD vendor, as they will usually have the best support for the most features. Trying to use 3rd parties usually means a lag between releases and support of those releases.