Remote Support

Connect faces or spots to a ground support.

Three ground supports are available:
  • Ball hinge: Ball hinge can rotate in any direction about the remote point.
  • Rotating Hinge: Rotating hinge can only rotate about the hinge axis. The axis is defined by the remote point coordinates and a vector.
  • Rotating-slide hinge: Rotating-sliding hinge can rotate about the hinge axis and also slide along the axis. The axis is defined by the remote point coordinates and a vector.

Virtual connectors create perfectly rigid boundaries, stresses along the boundary faces can have local concentrations.

  1. On the Project Tree, click on the Connections workbench
  2. On the Connections workbench, select > Remote support.
  3. Create one of the following types of supports:
    Type Process
    Ball hinge
    1. In the Virtual connector dialog, select the Ball hinge radio button.
    2. Under Apply to, use the radio buttons to specify whether to apply connector to a Face or Spot.
    3. If applying to Spots, you can create new spots by clicking Create new spots.
    4. In the modeling window, click to select specific parts on the model.
    5. The remote point coordinates are set in COG by default. To edit the coordinates, uncheck the Set in COG checkbox and specify values for the X, Y, and Z fields.
    Rotating hinge
    1. In the Virtual connector dialog, select the Rotating hinge radio button.
    2. Under Apply to, use the radio buttons to specify whether to apply connector to a Face or Spot.
    3. If applying to Spots, you can create new spots by clicking Create new spots.
    4. In the modeling window, click to select specific parts on the model.
    5. The remote point coordinates are set in COG by default. To edit the coordinates, uncheck the Set in COG checkbox and specify values for the X, Y, and Z fields.
    6. Under Hinge axis, specify values for the X, Y, and Z fields.
    Rotating-slide hinge
    1. In the Virtual connector dialog, select the Rotating-slide hinge radio button.
    2. Under Apply to, use the radio buttons to specify whether to apply connector to a Face or Spot.
    3. If applying to Spots, you can create new spots by clicking Create new spots.
    4. In the modeling window, click to select specific parts on the model.
    5. The remote point coordinates are set in COG by default. To edit the coordinates, uncheck the Set in COG checkbox and specify values for the X, Y, and Z fields.
    6. Under Hinge axis, specify values for the X, Y, and Z fields.
  4. Click OK.
    The connector appears in the Connections branch. If selected, it is visually represented in the modeling window.