An easy way to view contacts on a multi-body assembly

[Anonymous]

I have been given the task of finishing an Autodesk Inventor 2012 static analysis of a frame assembly. The frame was modelled in Solidworks and brought into Inventor ready for analysis.

The loads have been set up, as have the restraints and I am happy with the way the assembly is at this stage.

The problem is that the contacts have been added only partially. Why partially, because the last engineer left and this has now been thrown on my desk to do. I am a Solidworks certified professional so I am familar with what I should be doing but not with Inventor! Therefore if anybody can please explain the following:

I have two types of contacts to be set. either bonded or seperation. at the moment I have 815 bonded and 143 defined as seperation. the previous engineer warned that a number of the bonded contacts should be removed and replaced with seperations on a certain part of the assembly.

I can see where this should be within the assembly but how can I quickly go through and check the contacts. Ideally I would like to isolate part of the metal work, see the contacts it has then move onto the next component so I can check the entire assembly and make sure no mistakes have been made prior to running the simulation.

At the moment if I isolate a body all the contacts remain in the file tree. Does anybody have any ideas or suggestions about how they would approach this.

Regards,

Andy

[John_Holtz]

Hi Andy,

If you only have two types of contact (bonded and separation), you should only need to define one of them. The other one can be handled by the "default" bonding type set by "Settings > Stress Analysis Settings".

Otherwise, the only way I know to "see" where they are in the model is by the name shown in the browser, the surfaces that are highlighted when you click the entry in the browser, and by zooming into the area when you right-click the entry in the browser and choose "Find in window".

The readers on the Inventor Discussion Group may have some other hints for you.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, you are far more help than the Inventor reseller that I labour under.