bolt (Metal Clip)

The bolt (metal clip) creates elements, systems, and configurable body elements that connect a clip location.

Restriction: Available in Nastran, OptiStruct, LS-DYNA, and PAM-CRASH 2G.

To correctly determine the connector's face and the elements that are a part of the projection, you are required to select a node on the base where there is a hole for the penetrating part.

Realization Details

The Diameter, Cylinder L1, Bolt Body Option, Bolt Body Length, Hole Node, and Horizontal Offset options, defined in Figure 2, control the node selection for the parts being clipped.

The number of elements that are selected for the realization on the loop part (red) is controlled by the width of the diameter. The diameter also controls the number of nodes selected in the penetrating part (blue).

The Cylinder L1 option controls the height of the search Cylinder.

The Bolt body option can be set to “auto body length” or a defined body length. A defined body length will create the body element from the base element up the desired length (See graphic below). Auto body length will create a body element from the centre of the found groups of elements.

The Hole Node option specifies how the depended nodes will be determined.
All nodes
All the nodes of the hole will be considered as depended nodes for the element.
Dia factor
A diameter factor is specified which, after being multiplied with the Diameter value, determines the diameter within which the nodes will be considered.
The Horizontal Offset option specifies the horizontal offset of the cylinder determining the depended nodes.


Figure 1. Horizontal Offset Example


Figure 2.

Material Option

When defining the connector, the Material Option can be selected for individual connectors using the Connector Entity Editor.

From current model
Select an existing material from the current model.
From search folder (default)
For bolt (metal clip) realizations, the material search folder is Metal_clip. HyperMesh searches for this folder in the following locations and in the following order:
  1. Installation: [hm_scripts_dir]/connectors/Metal_clip
  2. User directory: [USER_HOME]/Metal_clip
  3. HyperMesh Configuration Path folder: [HW_CONFIG_PATH]/Metal_clip
  4. Current working folder: [CURRENTWORKINGDIR]/Metal_clip
In the Connector Entity Editor, the Material Folder field is populated with the name of the folder that was found last. Only the files in this Metal_clip folder are considered and can be selected in the Material File field.
By default, the first file listed (alphabetical order) in the folder is automatically populated in the Material File field and is used when realizing a connector from the panel. For this reason, it is important that you only keep valid material files in the Metal_clip folders.
From connector metadata
Once a connector is realized with the Material Option “From Search Folder”, the folder and file name are written as metadata to the connector. Folder data is saved in a relative manner to allow the exact same re-realization in a different work environment as long as the materials are saved in the according folders
If the materials are not available as the metadata states, the realization fails and the following message is displayed: "Material file/id not found".

Body Configurations

All the realizations support multiple body options. The most notable differences are between the rigid elements and the deformable elements. The rigid will create a single element for the whole realization.



Figure 3. Rigid


Figure 4. Deformable
Solver Supported Types
LS-DYNA BEAM, Rdgbody
Nastran / OptiStruct CBUSH, CBAR, RBE2
PAM-CRASH 2G SPRGBM, SPRING, RdgBody