Dynamic Analysis and Idealization of parts

[TES1]

Hello everyone, 

I would like to ask a question, as I was not capable of finding any answer anywhere. 

In Creo Mechanism MDO, in order to extract reaction forces at joints of an assembly, is it possible to idealize the parts and use them in a dynamic analysis? By idealizing I mean creating dummy parts, containing only curves, points, planes and basic surfaces/geometry( with no mass)  in order to replicate the functionality of the joints only, not the entire geometry of the part. The reaction forces would then be used to run an FEA on the original geometry parts.

This would help in complex or large assemblies, for example instead of having a slider in a slot, we would have a point sliding on a curve. Is applying forces to those idealized entities going to provide the reactions in the joints that are required? 

Kind thanks

[ChrisKaswer]

MDO requires all bodies have mass. If you wish to assemble idealized parts as a welded or rigid body to another part with mass, that might work - I don't recall if I've tried that one yet. You could also apply a user-input mass for an idealized body and keep it very small.

If this idealized part is what you ultimately run an FEA on, you could use the actual geometry itself and simply transfer the loads into Simulate. This is a very nice capability that makes this task very simple and quick.

[SweetPeasHub]

yes i agree with @ChrisKaswer. you can even put a small cube in the dummy model and some dummy material applied so there is some tiny amount of mass. every body except ground body needs non zero mass/inertia. otherwise a skeleton model like you desire is great. i actually prefer to connect mechanisms with datum features rather than surfaces or solid features even when i have complete solid models. in more traditional dynamic software like Adams and Motionsolve having the part graphics is a more obviously optional - not needed for results but so useful for us humans to visualize and validate models.