TRUSS WELDED MEMBER OVERVIEW

A Welded member is an assembly consisting of parts and connection assemblies. Behind the truss' plates, sections and Welded Member are detail drawings. Parts are sections, plates, fasteners, holes and driving sketches. Connection Assemblies are End Plate Connections. The sections weldment profiles are SHS - Square Hollow Sections (Square Tube)

MATES AND CONSTRAINTS

Our trusses are smart in that parametric behavior is linked to the length of the truss. When a truss is inserted from the library it is attached to a single horizontal sketch segment by using 3 mates and 1 relationship. A user can change the depth of the truss by changing the main driving sketch component with the contained layout sketch. When inserting the Truss into a Zone, Mates are added, the Mates lock the Welded Member assembly to the selected driving sketch. The first being a coincident mate from the origin of the welded member truss to the start point of the selected sketch segment. The second mate is a coincident mate from the Attachment sketch segment (AS) in the Truss Welded Member Assembly to the selected driving sketch segment, line to line. The last mate is a mate that locks the Truss welded member to a Plane in the Zone assembly to fully define it in position. The relationship is the last thing that parametrically stretches the length of the truss to the selected driving sketch. This is the Attachment Sketch segment (1 Only) and the selected driving sketch segment and they are equally constrained.

MODELLING TECHNIQUE

The Welded Member was modelled in a Zone Assembly without connections initially, then connections were added. Only 1 connection at 4 points. They are all different. The reason for this was to be flexible in the changes that might be required for the mating sections they will be bolted to. The connection is attached to 3D sketch points, which are attached to sketch segment end points which reside in the Truss welded member. As the length of the truss is adjusted, the connection moves with the end of the sketch segments end point or start point.

DRIVING SKETCHES

The assembly’s driving sketch component is driven by the Assembly’s Attachment Sketch and forms the basic shape of the truss’ top and bottom chords for driving the height manually. The assembly contains a sketch called Diagonal sketch which is driven and is attached to both the driving sketch component and the Top and Bottom Chords. This sketch is used to position the Diagonal Sections.

SECTIONS

Top and Bottom Chord Section Parts have been inserted from the library at the Welded Member assembly level and are attached to the Layout sketch which resides in a driving sketch component. The Top is a new Section, the Bottom chord is a duplicate of the top chord. Each Section has an Attachment Sketch (AS) with a sketch segment which is used to attach the section similar to the welded members attachment sketch segment to a selected driving sketch. 3 Mates are added and a constraint. Each section is mated to sketch segments except for the diagonals, they have had the mates adjust to sit offset on a point and face mate. A pattern is adjusted using equations based on the overall length of the truss set in the Diagonal Sketch.

BOLTED CONNECTIONS

The bolted connection assemblies contain plates, sections (as envelopes), fasteners (as envelopes), holes (as envelopes) When the connection is inserted, the sections update based on the users selections in order of the first section being contained within the truss since the end plate is welded to the top or bottom chords. The second selected section is the column section and is called the BOLTED1 member. Both sections are updated based on the users section selections. Then the Holes (which are sketches as intersection curve and extruded with the bodies hidden) are used to create holes in the columns based on the name of the extrusion being BOLTED1. In the connection's assembly is its Driving Sketch which drives the plate using in-context references. There is also a cut sketch which is named to cut the WELDED section the user has selected. An Assembly Extruded Cut has been added which is attached to the driving sketch and creates the holes in the plate. This way only one sketch positions the holes.

DATALINKS

Datalinks are no longer used but may show up from time to time. They may be deleted or left in place. If your 30 day trial has expired and you have inadvertently gotten datalinks in a part or assembly, you can insert it into another assembly and delete it in-context.

DETAIL DRAWINGS

The Truss Welded Member was initially detailed manually, but took less than 5 minutes to update the drawing after the connections had been added. The Sections when inserted also came with detailed drawings for each and they also required some minor manual updates. Sections that had perp cuts automatically adjusted their dimensions. The plates on the end of the chords contained within the bolted connections also came with detail drawings and did not require any changes.