Basic FEA Question

[Anonymous]

I am in an engineering graphics class and they are using Solidworks 2017. I am not using Solidworks. How would I go about modeling this truss frame and simulating static forces on it? 

From the book: https://imgur.com/1A6KgH7

What I've drawn so far: https://imgur.com/4fTn3FI

In solidworks the steel round bars are overlapping and acting as joints, but not merged. Is this possible to do in fusion or would I have to model actual joints between them?

Thank you for your time!

[TheCADWhisperer · Accepted solution]

---

@Anonymouswrote:

I am in an engineering graphics class and they are using Solidworks 2017.

---

Autodesk Inventor Professional is the functional equivalent product to SolidWorks.

Students can download Autodesk Inventor Professional for free from http://www.autodesk.com/edcommunity

In Autodesk Inventor Professional you would use the Frame Analysis environment.

You would find that it is very similar in operation to SolidWorks technique.

File>Export and then Attach your *.f3d file here if you have trouble figuring it out.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I'll give that a shot!

[Anonymous]

I couldn't figure out how to load the f3d file into Inventor.  I saved it as a STEP file just to try it out, but I'm pretty sure that's not the way to go about it.  From what I've seen it needs to be an assembly to use the frame analysis or else it doesn't show up. Am I missing something simple here or am I just up a creek. 

Thanks for your time! - Jata