Autodesk Simulation Mechanical and Multiphysics

[#1]

Is there a way to draw lines in inventor and bring them into simulation to represent beam elements?  I can only bring surfaces and solids into simulation.

[#2]

Any ideas on this?  I can draw lines in AutoCAD and bring directly into Simulation but cannot figure out any way to do this wtih Inventor?  I want to make changes to my model but do not want to redraw these lines in Simulation every time.

[#3]

Simulation Mechanical cannot import lines from Inventor. But it may not be necessary in your case, either. Although I have not tried it, I am pretty sure that any geometry drawn in Simulation Mechanical after you have imported a CAD model is retained when the the CAD model is re-imported. Only the CAD parts are replaced. So as long as the beam elements do not need to change, you only need to draw them the first time.

If that does not work, you can save the beam parts to a different file and merge them into the new model ("File > Merge").

[#4]

One  way to do this is to save the model / sketch from Inventor as IGES / wireframe.

Then Sim will open it as line elements.

Hope this helps..

H. Nilsson

[#5]

Unfortunately my model is a mixture of beam and shell elements, and I need the beam elements to change with the shell elements.  Thanks for the replies.