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Wiring Harness Mass Properties

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Message 1 of 6
hawkpxr5
1116 Views, 5 Replies

Wiring Harness Mass Properties

Are there any suggestions for obtaining general and inertial mass properties from a wiring harness? For example, I can assign a mass per unit length property to my library wires and use the report generator to get the harness mass. If the wire sweeps and/or the segment sweeps were generated as solids rather than shells, then these could be assigned a density to get inertial and mass properties. Is there a switch in AIP to change wires and segments from shells into solids?
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Message 2 of 6
hawkpxr5
in reply to: hawkpxr5

OK, I found the switch...must need new glasses. It's in the General tab of the Harness Settings menu. De-select the "Create Segments and Wires using surfaces" option.
Message 3 of 6
Anonymous
in reply to: hawkpxr5

hawkpxr5,

Yes, that's the way to switch between solid and surface.

But please note it is not recommended to measure mass properties for a
harness. Firstly, segment is not real in Inventor harness design, it just
defines a virtual path for wires and cables. That's why it's not displayed
in BOM. If you count this in your mass properties, the result may not be
reliable.

Secondly, as you may know, all harness objects (like wires, cables,
segments, etc.) are features in a part, while materials are defined in part
level. In real life, different wires or cables have different densities.
Also, even if a wire has a copper core and an insulation covering. It's hard
to use a general density to cover them all. Thus, the mass properties
calculated may also not be reliable.

Thanks,
-Richard
Message 4 of 6
timseeley
in reply to: hawkpxr5

Thanks for your comments, Richard. Still, for mass constrained projects I need an estimate of the harness mass properties. My approach will be to use MIL-DTL-27500H which provides equations and tables for estimating cable mass per unit length that takes into account shielding, jacket material, insulation, etc. With Inventor, I should be able to save the harness as a STEP file, break up the harness segments and then reassemble them into a .iam file. I'll use Inventor to tell me the volume and length of each segment, and I'll use MIL-DTL-27500H to estimate the mass per unit length of each segment. At this point I'll have an effective density for each harness segment. Since Inventor allows custom material properties, I should be able to assign these to the harness segments. At the end of the day, this should give me an estimate of both the general and inertial mass properties I'm looking for.
Message 5 of 6
JWGPringle
in reply to: Anonymous

My task is to find the mass and COG of our modeled harnesses. I take it from the response that assigning mass to wires is not supported in the routed system package for Inventor.

  I can use the parameter function to calculate the mass of a cable (using the formula from NEMA-DTL-27500)  and it will export it to the custom section of the iproperties for the harness (as text). Is there no way to link it to the actual cables for inclusion in the overall mass calculation. The cable is no different from any other part in that it has shape and mass. Using iproperties, i can assign mass to the connectors and backshells in my content center. These parts are not necessarily uniform in shape or mat'l. But if I cannot assign mass to the wires and cables then my efforts to use Inventor to calculate the COG are futile.

  As for wire and cables having different densities, yes that is true. That is why the specs provide the information for figuring out the specific masses for estimating the mass of your harness.

Message 6 of 6
Maxim-CADman77
in reply to: hawkpxr5

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