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1-Visitor
November 4, 2016
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Mass Properties Analysis: Assigned vs Computed

  • November 4, 2016
  • 7 replies
  • 6093 views

Hello,

 

I have to provide moment of inertia and COG information for our products (avionics boxes), this was done by a consultant previously.  Since a number of circuit cards exist in the model, there can be thousands of parts that I don't want to provide materials to individually and instead I will weigh the card and provide an assigned mass to the assembly level of the card (a bit of corner cutting here).  My assumption is that Creo takes this mass and applies an even density through the assembly.  There are also other instances where I am working in other people's models and they have parts that should not be included in the analysis, but are parents to a number of parts that must be included.  Not wanting to fiddle with the model, I also assign negligible masses to these parts.  I'm assuming that this negligible mass is now practically invisible to the calculations.

 

My issue comes when I attempt to run the analysis with the assigned masses.  The total mass comes out accurate, and the center of gravity seems right however the inertia calculations are clearly wrong.  Based on some simple hand calculations I should expect values on the order of 20-100 lb*in^2, however I'm getting in the 10^7-10^9 range.  This is similar to what I get when running the standard computed mass analysis so I feel like creo is doing something with the default values and not the assigned ones.

 

How does Creo calculate these values when using the assigned values selection?  Is there a method I should use here instead for ensuring assigned values work properly?  Or am I missing something more fundamental?

 

Attached is a text file of the results of the assembly analysis, both the computed and assigned values versions. 

 

Thank You!

-Joe Seymour


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Best answer by Kevin

For an assembly Creo uses the calculated or assigned values from the part level. It also uses the density value not the mass value in the inertia calculation. Probably the easiest way to adjust the inertia values if you have the option to is to create an analysis feature for the card assembly that includes the inertia and mass values and write relations for the card assembly alternate inertia values. Doing this gets you in the range of 150 for Ixx and Iyy and 20 for Izz.

7 replies

Kevin1-VisitorAnswer
1-Visitor
November 7, 2016

For an assembly Creo uses the calculated or assigned values from the part level. It also uses the density value not the mass value in the inertia calculation. Probably the easiest way to adjust the inertia values if you have the option to is to create an analysis feature for the card assembly that includes the inertia and mass values and write relations for the card assembly alternate inertia values. Doing this gets you in the range of 150 for Ixx and Iyy and 20 for Izz.

1-Visitor
November 8, 2016

I used to just adjust the part density so the mass came out correctly. This applies a uniform density to the part, which should allow a good close approximation for calculation of all other mass properties.

I would only use assigned properties if I was going to assign all of them.

14-Alexandrite
November 8, 2016

Another work around that I have used in the past when we received step files from customers with thousands of part is to set the density to 0 (or almost 0).Then, model a block with the assembly weight centered on the CG location.

1-Visitor
November 8, 2016

And if you do decide to change the density value for all parts you could use ModelCheck, if you have the option to, to do it instead of having to go into every model and change the value.

14-Alexandrite
November 28, 2016

Can you explain how to do this? We have some parts that need the density changed and they are all checked into windchill so changing individually will be painful.

1-Visitor
November 28, 2016

Model check works -before- checking into Windchill. No matter the method, all the parts will have to be checked out first.