Catia Assembly

Assembly Design

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR AVIATION RESEARCHWichita State University

Revision 5.14Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

www.cadcamlab.org

None of this material may be reproduced, used or disclosed, in part or in whole, without the expressed written permission of:

National Institute for Aviation ResearchWichita State University

Wichita, KS

Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

www.cadcamlab.org

CATIA Assembly Design CATIA® V5R14

Table of Contents, Page i© Wichita State University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Assembly Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Pull Down Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Insert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Analyze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Assembly Design Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Assembly Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Inserting Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Replacing and Creating New Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Reordering and Numbering the tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Bill of Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Constraining and Manipulating Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Bounding Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Manipulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Coincidence Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Contact Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Snap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Defining a Multi Instantiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Smart Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Modifying a part to create a new part while in an assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Fast Multi Instantiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Fix Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Offset Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Copying and Pasting with constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Angle Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56Explode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Advanced Constraint Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Fix Together Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Quick Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Changing a Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Reusing Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69Weld Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80Activating/Deactivating constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Inserting with Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87External References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90Assembly Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Hole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96Add . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Remove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Symmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Flexible/Rigid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120


Table of Contents, Page ii ©Wichita State University

Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122Constraints Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122Degree(s) of Freedom Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Mechanical Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Component Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130Reordering Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131Modify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142Search and Selection Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149


Table of Contents, Page iii© Wichita State University

DMU Space Analysis Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161Pull Down Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Insert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162Analyze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

DMU Space Analysis Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

DMU Space Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Measure Between . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167Measure Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176Measuring an Arc Using 3 Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179Measure Inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Clash Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184Sectioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200Compare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2043D Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2072D Annotated Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209Manage Annotated Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217Capturing Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Using the Photo Album . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226


Table of Contents, Page iv ©Wichita State University

DMU Navigator Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233Pull Down Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233Insert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

DMU Navigator Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

DMU Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237Publish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237Hyperlinks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240Current Selection Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241Spatial Query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249Simulation Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253Flying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256Viewpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260Translation or Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268Snap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270Reset Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Practice Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275Problem #1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275Problem #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276Problem #3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277Problem #4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278Problem #5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280Problem #6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284Problem #7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285Problem #8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289General - Display - Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289General - Display - Performances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290General - Parameters and Measure - Measure Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291Infrastructure - Product Structure - Product Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292Mechanical Design - Assembly Design - General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293Mechanical Design - Assembly Design - Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295Mechanical Design - Assembly Design - DMU Sectioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296Digital Mockup - General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297Digital Mockup - DMU Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298Digital Mockup - DMU Space Analysis - DMU Clash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299Digital Mockup - DMU Space Analysis - DMU Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301Save Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301


Assembly Design - Inserting documents, Page 11© Wichita State University

Assembly Design

The first section of this manual will involve inserting, creating, and replacing documentsand other components in the assembly design. Those documents can be a variety of thingsincluding parts and other assemblies.

Inserting Documents

All of the assemblies created in this first section will not need to have constraints added toproperly position them. The first assembly that will be built is a basic hand drill.

This drill is made of the following parts. The caption under each picture is the filename sothe parts can be referenced to as needed.

Case 1

Handle Arm

Handle Knob

Drive Gear


Assembly Design - Inserting documents, Page 12 ©Wichita State University

Output Gear

Drill Chuck 1

Drill Bit 1

Start a new product document. This can be accomplished by selecting the new icon andselecting product. You need to make sure you are in the assembly design workbench beforecontinuing. To switch to the assembly design workbench select the change workbench iconand then select assembly design.

One of the most important ideas to keep in mind with assembly design is that all parts musthave an unique id. The assembly should also have an unique id, especially if it is going tobe used as a sub-assembly.

Using the third mouse button select Product1. This will bring up the contextual menu forProduct1.

Select Properties and then the Product Tab. This is where various information about theassembly, as well as individual parts can be stored. Filling in all of the information is notnecessary, but can become quite useful to a down stream user. For now, the Part Number isthe only field that will be changed, but feel free to fill in any of the other fields.



Change the Part Number to Hand Drill. Select OK when done. This will give theassembly an unique id, so that in case this was to be used in a larger assembly, say a garagemock-up, then there would be no conflicts.

Select the existing component icon. The icon will highlight and is waiting for theuser to select a product to insert the component into.

Select Hand Drill. This will define what product the component will be placed into. A FileSelection window appears.

Double select the Assembly Basics directory and select Case 1.

Select Open. The first case is now inserted into the hand drill product. The othercomponents will be inserted to complete the assembly.

Select the existing component icon, and select Hand Drill. The File Selection windowwill automatically open to the Assembly Basics directory.

Select Drive Gear, and select Open. The drive gear is inserted into the assembly, pre-positioned. If so desired, the case can be hidden to reveal the drive gear better. Be sure tohave all parts shown before continuing. Notice some of the components can be made into asub-assembly. For example, the output gear and drill chuck can be combined together. Thiscan either be done before hand, as with the handle assembly that you are going to insertlater, or the sub-assemblies can be generated on-the-fly as you will do next.

Select the product icon and select Hand Drill. This will insert a new product intothe assembly. A Part Number window appears.



A part number must be assigned to the new product. Part numbers can either be generatedby the computer or generated on-the-fly. The option to change how new product partnumbers are generated is under Tools, Options, Infrastructure, Product Structure, ProductStructure tab, and Part Number Manual Input. Your system is set up for manual input ofthe part number. To insure your ability to distinguish between the different products, youwill name this one Output Assembly.

Key Output Assembly in the Part Number window and select OK. This will change theinstance name, allowing for better model management. Now that you have a nested productassembly, a product within a product, you need to make sure that you insert new andexisting components into the proper product.

Select the existing component icon and select Output Assembly. Again, the File Selectionwindow displays. This time you will insert multiple components at the same time.

Select Output Gear, hold down Ctrl on the keyboard, and select Drill Chuck 1, thenselect Open. This will insert both documents into the Output Assembly product. You canexpand the Output Assembly product to reveal this by selecting on the plus sign next to it.

The handle assembly is already put together as a separate product. You will insert this next.

Insert an existing component into Hand Drill. The File Selection window will showagain.

Select Handle Assembly and then Open. This inserts the Handle Assembly into theHand Drill assembly. You can expand this sub-assembly by selecting the plus sign next toit.

Insert Drill Bit 1 into the Hand Drill assembly. This completes the Hand Drill assembly.The specification tree should appear similar to the diagram shown below. You willprobably have to expand some of the branches.



This is how CATIA represents your assemblies. It is structured in the same way it wasexplained earlier except in a tree form instead of a chart form as shown below.

Congratulations. This completes your first assembly.

Save your document. When you save your document the following window should appear:

It gives you this message because the new assembly that you created, Output Assembly, wasnever saved separately. If you select Yes then both the Hand Drill and the Output Assemblywill be saved.

Select Yes.

No constraints have been placed on this assembly, therefore all the parts are completely freeto move. Since all of the parts were created in the correct positions they inserted in thecorrect placement. Many times the models will not insert into the proper place and willneed constraints to position them properly. You will learn how to constrain parts later inthis course.



You are going to take a moment to investigate a few things about the assembly. Looking atthe tree you see you have two different icons next to the various components in the tree. Asyou work with assemblies you will notice that there are many different icons that appearnext to the components, each one tells you something about the component. Sometimes theicons only differ by the color of the gears so you need to pay close attention to thespecification tree. The two icons that you currently have represent a part or a product.

Part Product

As you go through this course you will be studying the specification tree from time to time.The tree holds a lot of information about your assembly and you need to be very familiarwith it.

The other important aspect of an assembly that you need to understand is the links that existbetween the assembly and its components. When you saved your assembly earlier, only twoitems were saved because the other components did not have any modifications. The HandDrill assembly was saved along with the Output Assembly. When an assembly is stored itonly contains pointers to the particular files and does not contain the data itself. Thischanges a little bit when other options are introduced. Therefore if you were to delete oneof the parts that exist in the assembly, the assembly will have a broken link when you openit. If you want to see the links that exist for a particular component you just need to makesure it is active and select pull down menu Edit, Links. The active component has a bluebox around it. In order to make an component active you need to double click thecomponent.

Select pull down menu Edit, Links. The Hand Drill should be the active component. TheLink window should appear. Notice that the Hand Drill assembly contains five links andthat they are all OK. Links will be discussed in more detail later in class.

Select Cancel. You will continue to investigate some of the other options.


Assembly Design - Replacing and Creating, Page 17© Wichita State University

Replacing and Creating New Parts

This exercise will be a continuation of the previous exercise. If the document is not alreadyopened, it will need to be opened before beginning this exercise. In many instances it isnecessary to change a part of an assembly because of optional designs that could be usedwith that assembly. This exercise will cover how to replace components with othercomponents without having to recreate the entire assembly. In the case of the hand drillthere are multiple options that are available such as a different case, drill chuck and drill bitthat could be used on this assembly. Instead of creating a new assembly for every option,you will learn how to replace each component in order to show the different options of thedesign.

Select the replace component icon and select Case. This brings up the FileSelection window. A Browse window will appear but will not be used. Case will bereplaced with Case 2.

Select Case 2 and then Open. An Impacts On Replace window appears. This will showall of the elements that will be affected by the replace operation. In this example there areno elements that will be affected. In addition to that, CATIA wants to know if it shouldreplace all instances of the Case with Case 2. Since there is only one instance of the Case itwill not make a difference. But, if there were a dozen bolts that needed replaced, you wouldwant to select Yes.

Select No and select OK. This will replace Case with Ergo Case. Any component, orproduct can be replaced in the same fashion. You will replace other components next.

Expand the Output Assembly if it is not already expanded. Remember you can do thisby selecting the plus sign to the left of the assembly.

Replace the Drill Chuck with Drill Chuck 2. This will replace Drill Chuck with LargeChuck. The new drill chuck displays.

Replace the Drill Bit with Drill Bit 2 . This will replace Drill Bit with Large Drill Bit.Notice the drill bit should really be included with the Output Assembly.


Assembly Design - Replacing and Creating, Page 18 ©Wichita State University

Select and hold the first mouse button on the Large Drill Bit and drag it to the OutputAssembly and release the button. This should move the drill bit to the sub-assembly.Working with sub-assemblies is an excellent way to manage models and the respectivecomponents.

Next a wall mount will be created within the assembly. First, a part number will need to bespecified, then an origin.

Select the part icon and then select Hand Drill. This will insert a new part into theHand Drill assembly or product. As mentioned before you will have to specify a partnumber for the new part.



Key Wall Mount in the Part Number window and select OK. This will make the partnumber of the new part to be Wall Mount and it should appear in your specification tree. ANew Part: Origin Point window appears asking where the origin is to be located.

Selecting Yes will allow you to define a new origin point for the part. Selecting No will usethe origin of the assembly as the origin of the new part.

Select No. This will define the origin of the new part to be the same as that of the assembly.

You will now create the wall mount. None of the other components will be used to designthe wall mount, although, later in this course you will be using other components to helpwith your design. It is advisable that all of the components be hidden, with the exception ofthe Wall Mount and possibly the Ergo Case for orientation purposes. This can beaccomplished by selecting the components and then using the third mouse button chooseHide/Show, or by selecting the components and then select the hide/show icon in the bottomtoolbar.



Expand the Wall Mount component until PartBody is accessible. This can beaccomplished by selecting the plus (+) next to the component and part icons.

Double select PartBody with the first mouse button. This will switch you to the PartDesign workbench. Notice that the active component is now the Wall Mount part. You cannow build the necessary geometry for the wall mount.



Create the wall mount. Drawings are shown below with the location of the mount inrelation to the axes. It is suggested that you use the yz plane for the sketch of the initial pad.

Double select Hand Drill. This will return you to the Assembly Design workbench.



Collapse the Wall Mount branch and show all of the components to look at the finaldesign. It should look like the following.

Save your document. The Save window appears again because when you save the HandDrill assembly, it is also going to save the Wall Mount part and the Output Assembly with itschanges.


Assembly Design - Reordering & Numbering, Page 23© Wichita State University

Reordering and Numbering the tree

With the assembly complete, you will look at two other options for assembly management.

Select the graph tree reordering icon. This will allow you to reorder the tree. Sincethe components are not related to each other in terms of order of creation, as in part design,they can be reordered at will.

Select Hand Drill. The Graph tree reordering window should appear. Notice that only theparts and sub-assemblies appear that are under the Hand Drill assembly and not the partsthat make up the sub-assemblies. If you want to reorder the components of the sub-assemblies, you can either reorder them while having the particular sub-assembly opened oryou can select that sub-assembly instead of selecting Hand Drill.

The up and down arrows allow the highlighted part to be moved higher or lower in the treerespectively. The third icon moves the selected part to another selected location. This couldbe useful to help organize a large assembly by reordering components to be listed togetherin the specification tree. In any case it is nice to know that you do not have to insert all ofyour components in a specific order, you can always reorder them later.

Move the Ergo Case to the bottom of the tree and select Apply when done. This can bedone by selecting the Ergo Case and then selecting the down arrow until it is on the bottomof the list. The tree will be reordered when Apply is selected. As you can see, it is fairlysimple to reorder components of the assembly. If you have a large number of components,it may be better to use the third icon to position the component at a particular locationwithout having to select the up or down arrows multiple times.

Using the third icon move Drive Gear to the location Handle Assembly. Notice thatDrive Gear appears after Handle Assembly now.


Assembly Design - Reordering & Numbering, Page 24 ©Wichita State University

Select OK. Remember you have to select Apply or OK in order for the reorder to takeeffect.

Next, you will generate numbering for the assembly.

Select the generate numbering icon. Generating numbers shows no visual change inthe assembly. It assigns numbers or letters to the parts within the assembly. They in turncan show up in the bill of material when it is generated as well as in balloon call outs indrafting.

Select Hand Drill. The Generate Numbering window appears.

The Mode determines whether you are assigning integers or letters to the parts within theassembly. Existing numbers will allow you to keep numbers that have already beenassigned or you can replace them. In this case you have not assigned any numbers thereforethe options are not available.

Select OK. Numbers are now assigned to all the individual parts of the hand drill.


Assembly Design - Bill of Material, Page 25© Wichita State University

Bill of Material

You will now create a bill of material. Although for this case it is somewhat unnecessarysince the assembly is fairly small, it will give you an idea on how to create a bill of materialfor much larger assemblies.

Select pull down menu Analyze, then select Bill of Material... The Bill of Materialwindow should appear.

The top section of the bill of material displays all of the parts and sub-assemblies of thecurrent assembly, in this case Hand Drill. It also shows separate bills of material for eachsub-assembly. Notice the nomenclature and revision field. If you would have filled in thosefields for each of the parts, as well as the sub-assemblies, they would have been displayedhere. The bottom section of the bill of material displays all of the parts that make up thecurrent assembly, as well as the quantity needed of each. The format of the output can bechanged with the Define formats button, but usually these formats will be pre-defined by thecompany. The Listing Report tab shows the same information, but in a different format.


Assembly Design - Bill of Material, Page 26 ©Wichita State University

Define formats

This allows you to customize your bill of material. This will also affect the bill of materialthat gets generated in drafting.



Select the Listing Report tab. This will show the listing report for a bill of material.

, Hides properties either the ones selected or all of them

, Shows properties either the ones selected or all of them

Changes the order of the displayed properties

This report shows the locations of the parts within the tree. 2 Large Chuck denotes theLarge Chuck that is located two levels deep. All of the properties within the Hiddenproperties can be added to the display.

Select Number from the Hidden properties field, then select the show properties icon.

This will add the number property to the displayed properties. Add any other fields

that you would like to see in the listing report.



Select the Refresh button. The additional fields were added to the report listing. Anexample is shown below.

Any report generated can be saved in a text format by selecting the Save As... button.

Select the Bill of Material tab. This will take you back to the original bill of material.

Select the Save As button and save the text file as bill of material. You will want tomake sure that you change to your area to save the BOM. You can save the bill of materialas a text, html or as an Excel file.

Select OK. This will complete the bill of material. Bills of material can be created at anypoint in the assembly design process and regenerated as necessary. After saving the files, itcan then be imported into multiple types of word processors.



If you were to open the text file using NOTEPAD then it would look similar to thefollowing diagram.

This completes the hand drill assembly.

Save and close your document.



This page is intentionally left blank.


DMU Space Analysis - Sectioning, Page 188 ©Wichita State University

Sectioning

Besides checking for clashes, you can also create section cuts and view them dynamically.You have a variety of file types that you can use to export the section cut results.

Select the sectioning icon. The Sectioning Definition window appears. A Section.1window also appears.

Definition

Name Gives your section analysis a name

Selection Objects that you want to perform a section analysis on

Uses a plane for the section analysis

Uses a slice for the section analysis

Uses a box for the section analysis

Cuts the volume with the section


DMU Space Analysis - Sectioning, Page 189© Wichita State University

Positioning

Normal constraint Specifies which axis the sectioning element will be normal to

Edits the position and size of the sectioning element

Defines position using a geometrical target

Defines position using 2 or 3 elements

Inverts the normal direction

Resets the position



Result

Exports the results

Edits the grid

Turns on and off the results window

Options

Turns on the section fill

Turns on clash detection

Turns on the grid



Manual Update Will not update the section results when parts are moved within theproduct such as with fitting simulation or kinematics, you will haveto manually update the section results

Update Updates the section results when parts are moved automatically, thiscan slow down the response of the system

Section Freeze Keeps the section from changing when moving the sectioningelement

You should see a yellow sectioning plane appear on your geometry.

Make sure you are in the Definition tab. This area allows you to define the sectioningelement.



Using the first button of the mouse, drag the sectioning plane back and forth. Youshould see the section change in the graphic area as well as in the results window.

Select the volume cut icon. Notice that in the graphic area, your assembly is cut bythe section plane.

Drag the plane back and forth. This shows the section cut of your assembly dynamically.You can also rotate the sectioning plane by using the red axis curves in the middle of thesectioning plane.

Rotate the plane around. This can cause some weird results, so you need to be carefulwhen rotating.

Select the volume cut icon again. This will turn off the volume cut.

Select the Positioning tab. This area allows you to position the sectioning element.

Select the reset position icon. This moves your plane back to its original position.You are going to change the position of the section plane using a variety of options.

Change the Normal constraint to be Y. Notice the section plane’s normal direction isalong the y-axis.

Select the edit position and dimensions icon. The Edit Position and Dimensionswindow appears.

Change the Origin to be 2, 5, 2 for X, Y and Z respectively and change the Dimensionsto have a Width of 5 inches and a Height of 8 inches. The section plane should appearsimilar to the one shown below.



Change the Translations value to 1 inch and select the +Tw button twice. The sectionplane moves forward two inches.

Select Close. The Edit Postion and Dimensions window closes. This is a good option touse when you need to position your sectioning element at a specific numeric location andwhen you want to adjust the size of it. There are two options for positioning your sectioningelement using existing geometry.

Select the geometrical target icon. This will allow you select geometry to define thelocation of the sectioning element. It works by defining plane locations.

Select on the face on the side of the vice as shown below. This positions the section planeto lie on that face. You can also position the sectioning element using multiple elements.

Select the positioning by 2/3 selections icon. This allows you to select multipleelements to define the sectioning element.



Select the two lines as shown below. This positions the section plane to contain those twolines.

Select the reset position icon. The plane returns to its original position.

Go to the Definition tab and select the volume cut icon. The assembly is cut by thesection plane

Go to the Positioning tab and select the invert normal icon. The side which is cutchanges.

Go to the Definition tab and select the volume cut icon again. This will turn off thevolume cut. You should notice that the results window is not showing the section very well.

Press the third mouse button while in the results window. Options appear allowing tochange the orientation of the results.



Select the 2D Lock option and Flip the results until it looks similar to the one shownbelow.

Select the Result tab. This allows you to modify the display of the results.

Select the section fill icon. This will turn off the section fill on the results.

Select the grid icon. A grid appears on your results.

Select the edit grid icon. The Edit Grid window appears.

Change the Mode to Relative and the Width to 2 inches and the Height to 1 inch. Thiswill put the grid’s 0, 0 location in the middle of the results and show grid lines every 1 inchvertically and every 2 inches horizontally. It should appear similar to the diagram shownbelow.

Select OK in the Edit Grid window. The window closes.



You are going to export these results as a V5 CATPart document. You can export theresults in a number of formats including iges and vrml.

Go to the Definition tab and change the Name to Vise. This will name the sectionanalysis.

Go to the Result tab and select the export as icon. The Save As window appears.

Save it in your directory as a CATPart with the name Vise. This will return you to theSectioning Definition window.

Select the grid icon again. This will turn the grid off in the results window.

Select the section fill icon again. The section is filled in the results window.

Select the Behavior tab. This allows you to specify how you want the section analysis toupdate.

Make sure it is on Manual Update and select OK. In the specification tree you should seea new branch under the Applications branch called Sections.

Close the results window and maximize your product window. You are going to openthe document that you created to look at the section analysis results.



Open the Vise.CATPart that you just saved. Notice the section cut geometry appears asmultiple curves.

Close this document.

You will now create a section analysis using a slice and a box.

Select the sectioning icon. The Sectioning Definition window appears. This timeyou are going to use a slice for your section analysis.

Change the Name to Slice and select the section slice icon. It is located under thesection plane icon. This section analysis is comprised of two planes.

Select the Positioning tab and select the edit position and dimensions icon. TheEdit Position and Dimensions window appears.

Change the Origin to 1, 5, 2 for X, Y and Z respectively and the Dimensions to 6, 12and 2 for the Width, Height and Thickness respectively. The Thickness determines thedistance between the two planes or how big the slice is.

Select Close. The window closes.



Go to the Definition tab and select the volume cut icon. The assembly is cut. Itshould appear similar to the diagram shown below.

Select OK. The Section Definition window closes and Slice appears under the Sectionsbranch in the specification tree.

Close the results window.

Select the sectioning icon again. The Sectioning Definition window appears. Thistime you are going to use a box for section analysis.

Change the Name to Box and select the section box icon. It is located under thesection slice or section plane icon. An entire box is used in this section analysis.

Select the volume cut icon. The assembly is cut.

Go to the Positioning tab and select the geometrical target icon. This will allowyou to define two planes to define the box.



Select the outer face and inner face of the vise as shown below. The thickness of the boxis defined by those two planes.

Change the Height and Width of the box to be 4 inches. It should appear similar to thediagram shown below.

Turn off the volume cut and select OK. Box appears under the Sections branch.

Close the results window and maximize the product window.

Feel free to play around with the sectioning options until you feel comfortable with them.

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