Simcenter 3D Solutions Assembly FEM Bridge Analysis in Simcenter 3D

This tutorial shows how to go about setting up a structural analysis using an Assembly FEM in Simcenter 3D.
The aim is to introduce the user to the power of Assembly FEMS and familiarize them with the approach and concepts involved.
The tutorial involves the analysis of a bridge (shown below). There are a total of 107 individual sections making up the bridge assembly. There are however only 9 unique sections. The Assembly FEM approach dramatically reduces the analysis setup effort by ensuring that CAD clean-up and meshing operations only need to be performed on the unique sections.




This tutorial is divided into 10 steps as follows:

1. Geometry preparation
2. Mesh the geometry
3. Assign Material and properties
4. Create FEM, assembly FEM and SIM file
5. Setup solution parameters 
6. Create Glued contacts to the Bridge assembly
7. Apply Loads and Constraints
8. Resolve Label ID conflicts in Assembly FEM
9. Solve the analysis
10. Postprocess the results

Please begin the tutorial with Assembly FEM Bridge Analysis in Simcenter 3D - Part 1 - Geometry preparation