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General Information |
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Assembly in KOMPAS-3D is a 3D model that combines models of parts, subassemblies and standard items and contains information on the mutual position of these components and dependences between parameters of their elements. More details on components...
Approaches to designing assemblies
Several developers can work on one assembly model. When organizing joint work, use the recommendations provided in the section Teamwork with an assembly.
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In KOMPAS-3D version 10 and later, the internal structure of the model file has been significantly improved. If the assembly model was created in KOMPAS-3D version 9 or older, it is strongly recommended to save the assembly and its components in the current version. |
Approaches to designing assemblies
There are two approaches to assembly design that correspond to two methods of adding components to the assembly:
•Bottom up – individually designed, existing component models are inserted into the assembly;
•Top down – components are created in the assembly, and construction of the next components may be based on the previous ones.
In practice, the most common is a mixed design method, i.e. a combination of techniques of the two above mentioned methods. In addition, Detailing geometry may be used – this is initial data represented in a graphic form and used as the base for creating geometry of components, or this is some kind of assembly "detailing" used to place components. If you have to model movement of assembly components, i.e. show how the mechanism works, detailing geometry can act as a movable wireframe that causes the related components to move.
For more details on approaches to design, see Appendix Methods for designing assemblies. Teamwork. It also contains information on design techniques used within a particular approach. For details on working with detailing geometry, see section Detailing Geometry.
Assembly modeling, as a rule, begins with adding components. You can define the assembly composition by including new components or deleting the existing ones. Component models are written to separate files on the disk. Links to these components are stored in an assembly file.
You can define the mutual position of assembly components by specifying parametric links between their faces, edges, and vertices (for example, coincidence of two parts' faces or coaxiality of a bushing and a hole). These connections are called matings.
In an assembly model, you can perform operations that simulate processing of the product assembly, for example, you can construct a hole that passes through several components or cut part of the assembly with a plane. You can also create solids and surfaces in an assembly. The results of the operations performed in the assembly are stored in this assembly and are not transferred to the component files.
If necessary, you can perform Boolean operations on components and other operations — edit component geometry and properties, change the position of components in an assembly. More details on actions with components...
To calculate the CMP of the assembly, you can use the density or mass values recorded in the component files, or you can specify special values that will be stored in the assembly file.
If an assembly is quite large with over 1,000 components, for example, it is usually designed by several designers. In addition, components of a large assembly often have very complex geometry.
Therefore, you should ensure the following when working with large assemblies:
•optimize use of computer resources,
•differentiate access to various parts of the assembly when several designers are working on it,
•protect the results of work of one assembly designer from being modified by other designers.
The above listed requirements can be met through:
•special settings of KOMPAS-3D, reducing computer resource costs (see section Settings of 3D Editor for Working with a Large Assembly,
•locking certain components of the assembly from being edited (see section Lock the Component from Being Edited,
•creating assembly loading types (see section Custom Load Modes) and their password protection (see section Passwords of Load Modes).
