Assembly Design

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR AVIATION RESEARCH

Wichita State University

Revision 5.14
Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

www.cadcamlab.org
None of this material may be reproduced, used or disclosed, in part or in whole, without the expressed written permission of:

National Institute for Aviation Research

Wichita State University
Wichita, KS

Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

www.cadcamlab.org
CATIA Assembly Design CATIA® V5R14

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Assembly Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Pull Down Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Insert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Analyze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Assembly Design Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Assembly Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Inserting Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Replacing and Creating New Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Reordering and Numbering the tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Bill of Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Constraining and Manipulating Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Bounding Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Manipulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Coincidence Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Contact Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Snap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Defining a Multi Instantiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Smart Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Modifying a part to create a new part while in an assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Fast Multi Instantiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Fix Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Offset Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Copying and Pasting with constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Angle Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Explode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Advanced Constraint Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Fix Together Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Quick Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Changing a Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Reusing Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Weld Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Activating/Deactivating constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Inserting with Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
External References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Assembly Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Hole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Add . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Remove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Symmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Flexible/Rigid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

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CATIA Assembly Design CATIA® V5R14
Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Constraints Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Degree(s) of Freedom Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Mechanical Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Component Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Reordering Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Modify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Search and Selection Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

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CATIA Assembly Design CATIA® V5R14
DMU Space Analysis Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Pull Down Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Insert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Analyze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
DMU Space Analysis Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

DMU Space Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Measure Between . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Measure Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Measuring an Arc Using 3 Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Measure Inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Clash Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Sectioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Compare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
3D Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
2D Annotated Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Manage Annotated Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Capturing Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Using the Photo Album . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

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DMU Navigator Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Pull Down Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Insert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
DMU Navigator Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

DMU Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Publish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Hyperlinks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Current Selection Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Spatial Query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Simulation Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Flying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Viewpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Translation or Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Snap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Reset Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Practice Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Problem #1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Problem #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Problem #3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Problem #4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Problem #5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Problem #6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Problem #7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Problem #8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
General - Display - Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
General - Display - Performances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
General - Parameters and Measure - Measure Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Infrastructure - Product Structure - Product Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Mechanical Design - Assembly Design - General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Mechanical Design - Assembly Design - Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Mechanical Design - Assembly Design - DMU Sectioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Digital Mockup - General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Digital Mockup - DMU Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Digital Mockup - DMU Space Analysis - DMU Clash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Digital Mockup - DMU Space Analysis - DMU Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Save Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

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CATIA Assembly Design CATIA® V5R14

Assembly Design
The first section of this manual will involve inserting, creating, and replacing documents
and other components in the assembly design. Those documents can be a variety of things
including parts and other assemblies.

Inserting Documents
All of the assemblies created in this first section will not need to have constraints added to
properly position them. The first assembly that will be built is a basic hand drill.

This drill is made of the following parts. The caption under each picture is the filename so
the parts can be referenced to as needed.

Handle Knob

Case 1

Drive Gear
Handle Arm

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CATIA Assembly Design CATIA® V5R14

Drill Chuck 1

Output Gear

Drill Bit 1

Start a new product document. This can be accomplished by selecting the new icon and
selecting product. You need to make sure you are in the assembly design workbench before
continuing. To switch to the assembly design workbench select the change workbench icon
and then select assembly design.

One of the most important ideas to keep in mind with assembly design is that all parts must
have an unique id. The assembly should also have an unique id, especially if it is going to
be used as a sub-assembly.

Using the third mouse button select Product1. This will bring up the contextual menu for
Product1.

Select Properties and then the Product Tab. This is where various information about the
assembly, as well as individual parts can be stored. Filling in all of the information is not
necessary, but can become quite useful to a down stream user. For now, the Part Number is
the only field that will be changed, but feel free to fill in any of the other fields.

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Change the Part Number to Hand Drill. Select OK when done. This will give the
assembly an unique id, so that in case this was to be used in a larger assembly, say a garage
mock-up, then there would be no conflicts.

Select the existing component icon. The icon will highlight and is waiting for the
user to select a product to insert the component into.

Select Hand Drill. This will define what product the component will be placed into. A File
Selection window appears.

Double select the Assembly Basics directory and select Case 1.

Select Open. The first case is now inserted into the hand drill product. The other
components will be inserted to complete the assembly.

Select the existing component icon, and select Hand Drill. The File Selection window
will automatically open to the Assembly Basics directory.

Select Drive Gear, and select Open. The drive gear is inserted into the assembly, pre-
positioned. If so desired, the case can be hidden to reveal the drive gear better. Be sure to
have all parts shown before continuing. Notice some of the components can be made into a
sub-assembly. For example, the output gear and drill chuck can be combined together. This
can either be done before hand, as with the handle assembly that you are going to insert
later, or the sub-assemblies can be generated on-the-fly as you will do next.

Select the product icon and select Hand Drill. This will insert a new product into
the assembly. A Part Number window appears.

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A part number must be assigned to the new product. Part numbers can either be generated
by the computer or generated on-the-fly. The option to change how new product part
numbers are generated is under Tools, Options, Infrastructure, Product Structure, Product
Structure tab, and Part Number Manual Input. Your system is set up for manual input of
the part number. To insure your ability to distinguish between the different products, you
will name this one Output Assembly.

Key Output Assembly in the Part Number window and select OK. This will change the
instance name, allowing for better model management. Now that you have a nested product
assembly, a product within a product, you need to make sure that you insert new and
existing components into the proper product.

Select the existing component icon and select Output Assembly. Again, the File Selection
window displays. This time you will insert multiple components at the same time.

Select Output Gear, hold down Ctrl on the keyboard, and select Drill Chuck 1, then
select Open. This will insert both documents into the Output Assembly product. You can
expand the Output Assembly product to reveal this by selecting on the plus sign next to it.

The handle assembly is already put together as a separate product. You will insert this next.

Insert an existing component into Hand Drill. The File Selection window will show
again.

Select Handle Assembly and then Open. This inserts the Handle Assembly into the
Hand Drill assembly. You can expand this sub-assembly by selecting the plus sign next to
it.

Insert Drill Bit 1 into the Hand Drill assembly. This completes the Hand Drill assembly.
The specification tree should appear similar to the diagram shown below. You will
probably have to expand some of the branches.

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This is how CATIA represents your assemblies. It is structured in the same way it was
explained earlier except in a tree form instead of a chart form as shown below.

Congratulations. This completes your first assembly.

Save your document. When you save your document the following window should appear:

It gives you this message because the new assembly that you created, Output Assembly, was
never saved separately. If you select Yes then both the Hand Drill and the Output Assembly
will be saved.

Select Yes.

No constraints have been placed on this assembly, therefore all the parts are completely free
to move. Since all of the parts were created in the correct positions they inserted in the
correct placement. Many times the models will not insert into the proper place and will
need constraints to position them properly. You will learn how to constrain parts later in
this course.

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You are going to take a moment to investigate a few things about the assembly. Looking at
the tree you see you have two different icons next to the various components in the tree. As
you work with assemblies you will notice that there are many different icons that appear
next to the components, each one tells you something about the component. Sometimes the
icons only differ by the color of the gears so you need to pay close attention to the
specification tree. The two icons that you currently have represent a part or a product.

Part Product

As you go through this course you will be studying the specification tree from time to time.
The tree holds a lot of information about your assembly and you need to be very familiar
with it.

The other important aspect of an assembly that you need to understand is the links that exist
between the assembly and its components. When you saved your assembly earlier, only two
items were saved because the other components did not have any modifications. The Hand
Drill assembly was saved along with the Output Assembly. When an assembly is stored it
only contains pointers to the particular files and does not contain the data itself. This
changes a little bit when other options are introduced. Therefore if you were to delete one
of the parts that exist in the assembly, the assembly will have a broken link when you open
it. If you want to see the links that exist for a particular component you just need to make
sure it is active and select pull down menu Edit, Links. The active component has a blue
box around it. In order to make an component active you need to double click the
component.

Select pull down menu Edit, Links. The Hand Drill should be the active component. The
Link window should appear. Notice that the Hand Drill assembly contains five links and
that they are all OK. Links will be discussed in more detail later in class.

Select Cancel. You will continue to investigate some of the other options.

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Replacing and Creating New Parts
This exercise will be a continuation of the previous exercise. If the document is not already
opened, it will need to be opened before beginning this exercise. In many instances it is
necessary to change a part of an assembly because of optional designs that could be used
with that assembly. This exercise will cover how to replace components with other
components without having to recreate the entire assembly. In the case of the hand drill
there are multiple options that are available such as a different case, drill chuck and drill bit
that could be used on this assembly. Instead of creating a new assembly for every option,
you will learn how to replace each component in order to show the different options of the
design.

Select the replace component icon and select Case. This brings up the File
Selection window. A Browse window will appear but will not be used. Case will be
replaced with Case 2.

Select Case 2 and then Open. An Impacts On Replace window appears. This will show
all of the elements that will be affected by the replace operation. In this example there are
no elements that will be affected. In addition to that, CATIA wants to know if it should
replace all instances of the Case with Case 2. Since there is only one instance of the Case it
will not make a difference. But, if there were a dozen bolts that needed replaced, you would
want to select Yes.

Select No and select OK. This will replace Case with Ergo Case. Any component, or
product can be replaced in the same fashion. You will replace other components next.

Expand the Output Assembly if it is not already expanded. Remember you can do this
by selecting the plus sign to the left of the assembly.

Replace the Drill Chuck with Drill Chuck 2. This will replace Drill Chuck with Large
Chuck. The new drill chuck displays.

Replace the Drill Bit with Drill Bit 2. This will replace Drill Bit with Large Drill Bit.
Notice the drill bit should really be included with the Output Assembly.

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Select and hold the first mouse button on the Large Drill Bit and drag it to the Output
Assembly and release the button. This should move the drill bit to the sub-assembly.
Working with sub-assemblies is an excellent way to manage models and the respective
components.

Next a wall mount will be created within the assembly. First, a part number will need to be
specified, then an origin.

Select the part icon and then select Hand Drill. This will insert a new part into the
Hand Drill assembly or product. As mentioned before you will have to specify a part
number for the new part.

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Key Wall Mount in the Part Number window and select OK. This will make the part
number of the new part to be Wall Mount and it should appear in your specification tree. A
New Part: Origin Point window appears asking where the origin is to be located.

Selecting Yes will allow you to define a new origin point for the part. Selecting No will use
the origin of the assembly as the origin of the new part.

Select No. This will define the origin of the new part to be the same as that of the assembly.

You will now create the wall mount. None of the other components will be used to design
the wall mount, although, later in this course you will be using other components to help
with your design. It is advisable that all of the components be hidden, with the exception of
the Wall Mount and possibly the Ergo Case for orientation purposes. This can be
accomplished by selecting the components and then using the third mouse button choose
Hide/Show, or by selecting the components and then select the hide/show icon in the bottom
toolbar.

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Expand the Wall Mount component until PartBody is accessible. This can be
accomplished by selecting the plus (+) next to the component and part icons.

Double select PartBody with the first mouse button. This will switch you to the Part
Design workbench. Notice that the active component is now the Wall Mount part. You can
now build the necessary geometry for the wall mount.

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Create the wall mount. Drawings are shown below with the location of the mount in
relation to the axes. It is suggested that you use the yz plane for the sketch of the initial pad.

Double select Hand Drill. This will return you to the Assembly Design workbench.

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Collapse the Wall Mount branch and show all of the components to look at the final
design. It should look like the following.

Save your document. The Save window appears again because when you save the Hand
Drill assembly, it is also going to save the Wall Mount part and the Output Assembly with its
changes.

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Reordering and Numbering the tree
With the assembly complete, you will look at two other options for assembly management.

Select the graph tree reordering icon. This will allow you to reorder the tree. Since
the components are not related to each other in terms of order of creation, as in part design,
they can be reordered at will.

Select Hand Drill. The Graph tree reordering window should appear. Notice that only the
parts and sub-assemblies appear that are under the Hand Drill assembly and not the parts
that make up the sub-assemblies. If you want to reorder the components of the sub-
assemblies, you can either reorder them while having the particular sub-assembly opened or
you can select that sub-assembly instead of selecting Hand Drill.

The up and down arrows allow the highlighted part to be moved higher or lower in the tree
respectively. The third icon moves the selected part to another selected location. This could
be useful to help organize a large assembly by reordering components to be listed together
in the specification tree. In any case it is nice to know that you do not have to insert all of
your components in a specific order, you can always reorder them later.

Move the Ergo Case to the bottom of the tree and select Apply when done. This can be
done by selecting the Ergo Case and then selecting the down arrow until it is on the bottom
of the list. The tree will be reordered when Apply is selected. As you can see, it is fairly
simple to reorder components of the assembly. If you have a large number of components,
it may be better to use the third icon to position the component at a particular location
without having to select the up or down arrows multiple times.

Using the third icon move Drive Gear to the location Handle Assembly. Notice that
Drive Gear appears after Handle Assembly now.

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Select OK. Remember you have to select Apply or OK in order for the reorder to take
effect.

Next, you will generate numbering for the assembly.

Select the generate numbering icon. Generating numbers shows no visual change in
the assembly. It assigns numbers or letters to the parts within the assembly. They in turn
can show up in the bill of material when it is generated as well as in balloon call outs in
drafting.

Select Hand Drill. The Generate Numbering window appears.

The Mode determines whether you are assigning integers or letters to the parts within the
assembly. Existing numbers will allow you to keep numbers that have already been
assigned or you can replace them. In this case you have not assigned any numbers therefore
the options are not available.

Select OK. Numbers are now assigned to all the individual parts of the hand drill.

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Bill of Material
You will now create a bill of material. Although for this case it is somewhat unnecessary
since the assembly is fairly small, it will give you an idea on how to create a bill of material
for much larger assemblies.

Select pull down menu Analyze, then select Bill of Material... The Bill of Material
window should appear.

The top section of the bill of material displays all of the parts and sub-assemblies of the
current assembly, in this case Hand Drill. It also shows separate bills of material for each
sub-assembly. Notice the nomenclature and revision field. If you would have filled in those
fields for each of the parts, as well as the sub-assemblies, they would have been displayed
here. The bottom section of the bill of material displays all of the parts that make up the
current assembly, as well as the quantity needed of each. The format of the output can be
changed with the Define formats button, but usually these formats will be pre-defined by the
company. The Listing Report tab shows the same information, but in a different format.

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Define formats

This allows you to customize your bill of material. This will also affect the bill of material
that gets generated in drafting.

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Select the Listing Report tab. This will show the listing report for a bill of material.

, Hides properties either the ones selected or all of them

, Shows properties either the ones selected or all of them

Changes the order of the displayed properties

This report shows the locations of the parts within the tree. 2 Large Chuck denotes the
Large Chuck that is located two levels deep. All of the properties within the Hidden
properties can be added to the display.

Select Number from the Hidden properties field, then select the show properties icon.
This will add the number property to the displayed properties. Add any other fields
that you would like to see in the listing report.

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Select the Refresh button. The additional fields were added to the report listing. An
example is shown below.

Any report generated can be saved in a text format by selecting the Save As... button.

Select the Bill of Material tab. This will take you back to the original bill of material.

Select the Save As button and save the text file as bill of material. You will want to
make sure that you change to your area to save the BOM. You can save the bill of material
as a text, html or as an Excel file.

Select OK. This will complete the bill of material. Bills of material can be created at any
point in the assembly design process and regenerated as necessary. After saving the files, it
can then be imported into multiple types of word processors.

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If you were to open the text file using NOTEPAD then it would look similar to the
following diagram.

This completes the hand drill assembly.

Save and close your document.

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Sectioning
Besides checking for clashes, you can also create section cuts and view them dynamically.
You have a variety of file types that you can use to export the section cut results.

Select the sectioning icon. The Sectioning Definition window appears. A Section.1
window also appears.

Definition

Name Gives your section analysis a name

Selection Objects that you want to perform a section analysis on

Uses a plane for the section analysis

Uses a slice for the section analysis

Uses a box for the section analysis

Cuts the volume with the section

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Positioning

Normal constraint Specifies which axis the sectioning element will be normal to

Edits the position and size of the sectioning element

Defines position using a geometrical target

Defines position using 2 or 3 elements

Inverts the normal direction

Resets the position

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Result

Exports the results

Edits the grid

Turns on and off the results window

Options

Turns on the section fill

Turns on clash detection

Turns on the grid

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Manual Update Will not update the section results when parts are moved within the
product such as with fitting simulation or kinematics, you will have
to manually update the section results

Update Updates the section results when parts are moved automatically, this
can slow down the response of the system

Section Freeze Keeps the section from changing when moving the sectioning
element

You should see a yellow sectioning plane appear on your geometry.

Make sure you are in the Definition tab. This area allows you to define the sectioning
element.

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Using the first button of the mouse, drag the sectioning plane back and forth. You
should see the section change in the graphic area as well as in the results window.

Select the volume cut icon. Notice that in the graphic area, your assembly is cut by
the section plane.

Drag the plane back and forth. This shows the section cut of your assembly dynamically.
You can also rotate the sectioning plane by using the red axis curves in the middle of the
sectioning plane.

Rotate the plane around. This can cause some weird results, so you need to be careful
when rotating.

Select the volume cut icon again. This will turn off the volume cut.

Select the Positioning tab. This area allows you to position the sectioning element.

Select the reset position icon. This moves your plane back to its original position.
You are going to change the position of the section plane using a variety of options.

Change the Normal constraint to be Y. Notice the section plane’s normal direction is
along the y-axis.

Select the edit position and dimensions icon. The Edit Position and Dimensions
window appears.

Change the Origin to be 2, 5, 2 for X, Y and Z respectively and change the Dimensions
to have a Width of 5 inches and a Height of 8 inches. The section plane should appear
similar to the one shown below.

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Change the Translations value to 1 inch and select the +Tw button twice. The section
plane moves forward two inches.

Select Close. The Edit Postion and Dimensions window closes. This is a good option to
use when you need to position your sectioning element at a specific numeric location and
when you want to adjust the size of it. There are two options for positioning your sectioning
element using existing geometry.

Select the geometrical target icon. This will allow you select geometry to define the
location of the sectioning element. It works by defining plane locations.

Select on the face on the side of the vice as shown below. This positions the section plane
to lie on that face. You can also position the sectioning element using multiple elements.

Select the positioning by 2/3 selections icon. This allows you to select multiple
elements to define the sectioning element.

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Select the two lines as shown below. This positions the section plane to contain those two
lines.

Select the reset position icon. The plane returns to its original position.

Go to the Definition tab and select the volume cut icon. The assembly is cut by the
section plane

Go to the Positioning tab and select the invert normal icon. The side which is cut
changes.

Go to the Definition tab and select the volume cut icon again. This will turn off the
volume cut. You should notice that the results window is not showing the section very well.

Press the third mouse button while in the results window. Options appear allowing to
change the orientation of the results.

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Select the 2D Lock option and Flip the results until it looks similar to the one shown
below.

Select the Result tab. This allows you to modify the display of the results.

Select the section fill icon. This will turn off the section fill on the results.

Select the grid icon. A grid appears on your results.

Select the edit grid icon. The Edit Grid window appears.

Change the Mode to Relative and the Width to 2 inches and the Height to 1 inch. This
will put the grid’s 0, 0 location in the middle of the results and show grid lines every 1 inch
vertically and every 2 inches horizontally. It should appear similar to the diagram shown
below.

Select OK in the Edit Grid window. The window closes.

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You are going to export these results as a V5 CATPart document. You can export the
results in a number of formats including iges and vrml.

Go to the Definition tab and change the Name to Vise. This will name the section
analysis.

Go to the Result tab and select the export as icon. The Save As window appears.

Save it in your directory as a CATPart with the name Vise. This will return you to the
Sectioning Definition window.

Select the grid icon again. This will turn the grid off in the results window.

Select the section fill icon again. The section is filled in the results window.

Select the Behavior tab. This allows you to specify how you want the section analysis to
update.

Make sure it is on Manual Update and select OK. In the specification tree you should see
a new branch under the Applications branch called Sections.

Close the results window and maximize your product window. You are going to open
the document that you created to look at the section analysis results.

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Open the Vise.CATPart that you just saved. Notice the section cut geometry appears as
multiple curves.

Close this document.

You will now create a section analysis using a slice and a box.

Select the sectioning icon. The Sectioning Definition window appears. This time
you are going to use a slice for your section analysis.

Change the Name to Slice and select the section slice icon. It is located under the
section plane icon. This section analysis is comprised of two planes.

Select the Positioning tab and select the edit position and dimensions icon. The
Edit Position and Dimensions window appears.

Change the Origin to 1, 5, 2 for X, Y and Z respectively and the Dimensions to 6, 12

and 2 for the Width, Height and Thickness respectively. The Thickness determines the
distance between the two planes or how big the slice is.

Select Close. The window closes.

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Go to the Definition tab and select the volume cut icon. The assembly is cut. It
should appear similar to the diagram shown below.

Select OK. The Section Definition window closes and Slice appears under the Sections
branch in the specification tree.

Close the results window.

Select the sectioning icon again. The Sectioning Definition window appears. This
time you are going to use a box for section analysis.

Change the Name to Box and select the section box icon. It is located under the
section slice or section plane icon. An entire box is used in this section analysis.

Select the volume cut icon. The assembly is cut.

Go to the Positioning tab and select the geometrical target icon. This will allow
you to define two planes to define the box.

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Select the outer face and inner face of the vise as shown below. The thickness of the box
is defined by those two planes.

Change the Height and Width of the box to be 4 inches. It should appear similar to the
diagram shown below.

Turn off the volume cut and select OK. Box appears under the Sections branch.

Close the results window and maximize the product window.

Feel free to play around with the sectioning options until you feel comfortable with them.

© Wichita State University DMU Space Analysis - Sectioning, Page 199

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