Bolted Connection

[Anonymous]

Hello 

I am trying to put a bolt through the tube (blue circle is the bolt face ) I am wanting to have the nut on the bottom face of the angle shim           ( red circle). Both are separate components. When I select the bolted constraint with nut, Fusion is not allowing me to select the angle face for the nut. It is only allowing me to select the bottom face of the tube plate.  Does anyone know why this might be or have any suggestion on how to fix this? 

Thanks in advance

[Anonymous]

Are you trying to simply locate a bolt? If so I do this in model using assemble.joint. If it is part of the simulation screen I am unsure, never knew it existed. Gonna check that out.

[Anonymous]

Yes I am in the simulation screen , I am using the bolted connector feature under the Constraints menu. It may be hard to tell but the angle I am trying to bolt through is supposed to be a shim to hold my loaded end cap on a tube. 

[John_Holtz]

Hi @Anonymous

I have a few question about your model to help determine what the issue is.

1. Are the faces with the bolt head and nut parallel? (Sometimes the rolled shapes have a tapered face, like the flange of a channel.) It looks like Fusion's bolt command is looking for circular geometry, and a hole cut through a face at an angle would create an ellipse instead of a circle.
2. Are the holes the same size through the different components? Are they centered? I seem to recall reading that there was a problem if the hole sizes were different or not aligned (but that problem would have been in a different software, too )

[Anonymous]

Hi John 

Yes the faces are parallel , I created the L shape from a sketch so I know the face is level , The holes are the same  diameter and centered on each other. I used the align command to place the shim in contact with the center tube.  I have attached a photo showing it in an out position, just for clarity. The end goal is to have the head of the bolt on the inside face of the tube and the nut on the lower face of the L shape shim. Thank You for your help and I appreciate your time. 

[dean.hockley]

Did you ever figure this out?  I am having the same problem where I cannot select the other component (or body, I have tried both) when defining a bolted connection between two entities.

[John_Holtz]

Dean provided a sample model to me in which a bolt could not be created through two components. Initially, I thought the problem was that there was a gap between the components, but after I added a "gasket" to fill the space, I still could not create a bolt through the three components. But this did provide a clue to one possible problem (and the solution).

It appears that Fusion detects whether the centerlines of the "matching holes" are aligned or not. If the holes are not perfectly aligned, the bolt connector will not let you select edges or surfaces on the other part. The "Assembly > Joint" command can be used to align the holes. See the Screencast "Bolt Connector in Fusion 360".

I did not try this, but I suspect that if you had 5 parts to bolt together, and only 3 of the parts were aligned, then you would be able to use any of the edges or surfaces on the 3 aligned parts to create the bolt, but not the edges or surfaces from the two bodies that are not aligned. This was the behavior that I saw in my "gasket" model that provided the clue that something was wrong.