Cosmosworks Help

[MechStudent]

So I joined this discussion board because I have been using y'alls help getting an intial setup of my senior project. I have been having difficulty with setting up my finaly analysis however.

I have a basic square truss design with 1/4" plates welded to the frame. I am trying to analyse a force applied to the plate and how it would affect the truss. I set up the truss members as weldments following a previous post on how to set this up. I am able to run an analysis on the truss alone with an approximate distribution of the load on the frame. Now I am wondering if there is a way to model the interaction between the plate and the truss. I tried setting up a rigid connection between the truss and the plate but Cosmosworks wasn't having it. Also, I tried adding an assembly weld to the plate and the truss but it wouldn't complete.

Any advice?

[MechStudent]

So I joined this discussion board because I have been using y'alls help getting an intial setup of my senior project. I have been having difficulty with setting up my finaly analysis however.

I have a basic square truss design with 1/4" plates welded to the frame. I am trying to analyse a force applied to the plate and how it would affect the truss. I set up the truss members as weldments following a previous post on how to set this up. I am able to run an analysis on the truss alone with an approximate distribution of the load on the frame. Now I am wondering if there is a way to model the interaction between the plate and the truss. I tried setting up a rigid connection between the truss and the plate but Cosmosworks wasn't having it. Also, I tried adding an assembly weld to the plate and the truss but it wouldn't complete.

Any advice?

[Drew Price]

Are you running this as a beam element analysis, or as a solid mesh, or as a shell mesh?

The beam element analysis made possible with a 'weldment' feature will not play nice trying to look at load distribution through gussets or plates, it is only meant to be a quick and dirty approximation for bending and tensile loads in slender beams.

Best,
Drew

[MechStudent]

I am running it as a shell element. I couldn't even get it to run as a beam.