Pressure Vessel Assembly

[Cdspyro]

We are testing out inventor for the use of modeling our Pressure Vessels in 3D. I've been trying to figure out the best way to do this and I'm finding Inventor more difficult than previously thought.

I have created a shell and a pipe that needs to be flush with the ID of the shell as two different parts. However, when I go to assemble them, I cannot find a way to mate them properly.

Also, is there a way to construct it so that if we need to update the location (i.e. elevation and orientation) we can do so fairly easily?

[robmatthews]

Is the pipe a penetration? I assume you have a suitable hole in the shell?  You will probably need to create some construciton geometry; that is, user work axes and work points, and mate with those. I think if the pipe is radial, then  would create a workplane tangential to the inside of the shell, and normal to the axis of the hole. The end of the pipe can also be cut to match the ID of the pressure vessel.

Does this make sense?

[JDMather]

This is fairly easy to do.  It would probably be easier to demonstrate if you attached your files here.

The absolute easiest method is to start with multi-body solids, but that might not be appropraite for every design.