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Table Of Contents
Basic Concepts of Assembling Parts | 401
Basic Concepts of Assembling Parts
You create assemblies from parts, either combined individually or grouped
in subassemblies. Mechanical Desktop builds these individual parts and
subassemblies into an assembly in a hierarchical manner according to rela-
tionships defined by constraints. Using the Desktop Browser, you can
restructure the hierarchy of an assembly as needed, while retaining the
design constraints. See Using the Desktop Browser on page 414.
As in part modeling, the parametric relationships allow you to quickly
update an entire assembly based on a change in one of its parts.
You can build 3D solid assembly models from two or more parts or subassem-
blies. Like part features, parts and subassemblies act as building blocks.
The following process for building assemblies and subassemblies is similar to
that for building parts:
Lay out the assembly.
Create the base part.
Create the remaining parts.
Create the assembly and subassemblies.
Analyze the assembly.
Modify the assembly as necessary.
When you create an assembly file, you can create your parts in the assembly
drawing, or you can reference external files.
Using externally referenced parts gives you more flexibility over the control
of your assembly. If you need to make modifications to any of your parts, you
can open the individual part file and make changes to it. Because more than
one drawing can be open in the same Mechanical Desktop session, you can
immediately see the effects of your changes in the assembly file. You can also
edit external references from within the assembly file. This is particularly use-
ful in smaller assemblies. Depending on your system resources, you can edit
external files individually if they are part of a large assembly.
After you have assembled your parts, you need to check the assembly for
interferences. You may also want to perform mass property calculations on
your parts to ensure that they are structurally sound.
Finally, you need to document your design. To make it easier to visualize your
design, you may want to adjust, or tweak, your assembly and add trails to
indicate how your parts fit together. Then, you set up your drawing views
and add information, such as reference dimensions and annotations, before
finalizing the drawing for plotting.