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HyperWorks
HyperWorks

2024.1
Index
  1. Home
  2. Connectors

    Create connections between parts of your model.

  3. Connector Browser

    Use the Connector Browser to view and modify connectors in the current model.

  4. Link Entity Browser

    The Link Entity Browser displays all of the links that are connected using the connectors in the model.

  • Welcome
  • What's New

    View new features for Altair HyperWorks 2024.1.

  • Get Started

    Learn the basics and discover the workspace.

  • Tutorials

    Learn more about the Altair HyperWorks suite of products with interactive tutorials.

  • Startup Procedures and Customizations

    Start and configure the applications.

  • Tool Finder

    View a list of deprecated panels and their newer, equivalent workflows.

  • Manage Files and Data

    Create, open, import, and save models.

  • Sessions and Report Templates

    Set up sessions and create report templates.

  • Interface with External Products

    Solver interfaces supported in HyperMesh.

  • Entities and Solver Interfaces

    A solver interface is made up of a template and a FE-input reader.

  • Browsers

    Browsers provide a structured view of model data, which you can use to review, modify, create, and manage the contents of a model. In addition to visualization, browsers offer features like search, filtering, and sorting, which enhance your ability to navigate and interact with the model data.

  • Sketching

    Create and edit 2D parametric sketch geometry.

  • Topology

    Create, edit, and cleanup geometry.

  • FE Geometry

    FE geometry is topology on top of mesh, meaning CAD and mesh exist as a single entity. The purpose of FE geometry is to add vertices, edges, surfaces, and solids on FE models which have no CAD geometry.

  • Meshing and Elements

    Explore the different types of mesh you can create in HyperMesh and create and edit 0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D elements.

  • Model Build and Assembly

    Create, organize and manage parts and subsystems.

  • Composites

    HyperMesh composites modeling.

  • Connectors

    Create connections between parts of your model.

    • Connector Preferences

      Connector preferences describe how different connector realizations behave when changes are made.

    • Connector Browser

      Use the Connector Browser to view and modify connectors in the current model.

      • Link Entity Browser

        The Link Entity Browser displays all of the links that are connected using the connectors in the model.

      • Connector Entity Browser

        The Connector Entity Browser contains a list of all the connections contained in the model, and has its own set of tools similar to the ones found in the Link Entity Browser.

      • Connector Entity Editor

        Use the Connector Entity Editor to quickly view and modify attributes assigned to connector(s).

      • Link Definition

        A link is a reference to a separate entity. One or more links are added to a connector. The entities to which the links refer are connected during realization.

      • Convert Style

        Convert connectors of one specific style into a different style, for example a spot connector into a bolt connector using the Convert option.

      • Combine

        Combine aligned single point connectors into line connectors or combine several aligned seam line connectors into larger one(s) using the Combine option.

      • Split

        Split spot or bolt line connectors into individual single point connectors using the Split option.

      • Position

        Place a connector in-between the center of the two farthest defined links or its source position using the Position option.

      • Add Link

        Add links (component, assembly, surface, element, tag, node) at a time to one or more connectors using the Add Link option.

      • Remove Links

        Remove links from one or more connectors at a time.

      • Update Links

        Update the attributes associated with a link, such as reconnection rule, link references, and link state.

      • Convert Links

        Existing connector links can be converted to one of the following link types: Part, Comp, or Prop. Connector link conversion requests a clear 1:1 relation between a component and a property, otherwise the conversion is not unique and will not be performed.

      • Find Links From Connectors

        The find parts feature in the Connector Browser context menu finds the entities/part(s) connected by specific connector(s), and isolates them in the modeling window.

    • Define Connector Controls

      Use the Control Manager to create and edit the various types of controls that will be used later when realizing connectors.

    • Create and Realize Connectors

      Use the tools in the Create tool set to create connectors, assign controls, and realize.

    • Apply Mass

      Create a dummy connector entity to add mass to a part, or create areas of mass to represent parts not present in the CAD or FE data.

    • Connector Quality Check

      Use the Quality controller to perform various checks on connectors and realized FE.

    • FE Absorb Connectors

      Use the FE Absorb tools to create connectors from existing mesh that meet specific types of realizations.

    • Realizations

      View details for different types of realizations.

    • Element Organization

      Organize elements in the Browser Configuration dialog.

    • FE Configuration File

      The FE configuration file (feconfig.cfg) is used to define custom welds such as ACM (Area Contact Method) and other special types.

    • Attachments and Connectors

      Attachments are an entity to facilitate the ease of joining subsystems.

    • Connector Tools

      Use the Connector tools to further define connections between components.

    • CAD Abstraction

      Abstract information incoming from the CAD hierarchy to robustly create connectors.

  • Morph

    Rapidly change the shape of the FE mesh without severely sacrificing the mesh quality.

  • Skeleton Modeling

    Create a reduced ordered model to facilitate optimization at the concept phase.

  • Design Space

    Workflow to support topology optimization model build and setup.

  • Optimization

    Setup an Optimization in HyperMesh.

  • Design Explorer

    Multi-disciplinary design exploration and optimization tools.

  • Validate

    Validate the model built before running solver analysis.

  • Analyze

    Models require loads and boundary conditions in order to represent the various physics and/or physical equivalents to bench and in-use testing.

  • Axisymmetry

    Reduce a full 3D model with axisymmetric surfaces while accounting for imperfections.

  • Concept Modeling

    Tools and workflows that are dedicated to rapidly creating new parts for specific use cases, or amending existing parts. The current capabilities are focused on stiffening parts.

  • Crash and Safety

    Tools used for crash and safety analysis.

  • Airbag

    Use airbag folder utilities and export a resulting airbag in a Radioss deck.

  • Aerospace

    Essential utility tools developed using HyperMesh-Tcl.

  • Aeroelasticity

    Import an aeroelastic finite element model with Nastran Bulk Data format.

  • Certification

    Framework to plug certification methods to assess margin of safety from the model and result information.

  • PhysicsAI

    Use PhysicsAI to build fast predictive models from CAE data. PhysicsAI can be trained on data with any physics or remeshing and without design variables.

  • Results Data

    Results data can be post-processed using both HyperMesh and HyperView.

  • Developer

    The Developer ribbon contains tools for automation and customization.

  • Plot Data

    HyperGraph is a data analysis and plotting tool with interfaces to many file formats.

  • Multibody Modeling

    MotionView is a general pre-processor for Multibody Dynamics.

  • Media Files

    MediaView plays video files, displays static images, tracks objects, and measures distances.

  • Tabulate Results

    Use TableView to create an Excel-like spreadsheet.

  • Text Files

    TextView math scripts reference vector data from HyperGraph windows to automate data processing and data summary.

  • Publishing and Reporting

    Create, define, and export reports.

View All Altair HyperWorks Help

Link Entity Browser

The Link Entity Browser displays all of the links that are connected using the connectors in the model.

Note: If a connector uses an element-type link, the component containing the element is also listed in the Link Entity Browser. Isolating this link displays the whole component instead of the single element. In the browser configuration window, activating the Show Primary Links Only option, for example, will list only real component links in the component link view.

The information displayed in this browser can be used to quickly locate certain links and appropriate connectors in the graphics area.

Parts of the model are separated into the following three categories that are based on the link selection:
1st link entity
Selected links
Linked connectors
Connectors which reference at least one of the selected links
2nd link entity
Links which are referenced by the linked collectors
Note: In this case, connectors and their realizations are treated as being a separate category from their links, in order to prevent unpredictable cross-references.

HyperMesh only uses this type of categorical separation when one of the view options are active and you select the show, hide, isolate, and isolate only options from the context menu. No other functionality uses this categorization at all.

The base features in the Link Entity Browser can be changed from the Link Entity Browser configuration window.

View Option Toggle Buttons

The Link Entity Browser is a tool to easily examine the connections between the different parts of a model. One strategy to do that is to start the investigation on one part or a certain group of parts, so each action in the Link Entity Browser starts with a selection of parts. Parts can be considered as links.

These view options determine the entities that display when you select and then show, hide, or isolate a link.
Figure 1.


Each button is modal, that is, you click it once to activate it, and click it again to deactivate it. Active buttons remain active until you specifically deactivate them, so you do not need to worry about them "resetting" after you perform an action such as isolate.

The following model illustrates the effects of these search options.
Note: The highlighted component; this component is the starting point for the following examples.
Figure 2. . Model provided courtesy of Audi.


In each example below, the selected component has been isolated using only the relevant view option.
Option Name Effect
Linked connector entity If this linked connector entity view option button is active all connectors linked to the 1st link entities will be taken into account for the action. It does not matter if the 1st link entity view option button is active or inactive, its connectors will still be located. This determination has nothing to do with any display states.
This means that in case of the isolation, only the connectors which are referenced by the selected links (1st link entity) are isolated.
Figure 3.


Realization When this option is active, all realizations belonging to the determined linked connector entities will be taken into account for the action.
Figure 4.


Cumulative Effect of Multiple Options

These options work accumulatively, for example, when both the 1st link entity and 2nd link entity buttons are active, then selecting and isolating a component link displays both it and all of the components connected it. If you had realization, 1st link entity, and 2nd link entity active when you isolated the same component link, then the model would display all of the component links connected to the selected one, as well as graphical representation of the realizations of each connector linking those component links together.

Context Menu

Right-click on an empty space or right-click on an entity to access the context menu. The options in the context menu vary accordingly.

Right-clicking in empty space displays the following:
Option Description
Create Create a new Connector Group.
Reorganize
Auto Reorganize
Organize connectors into connector groups based the settings defined in the Auto Reorganize Settings dialog.
Auto Reorganize Settings
Access settings used to reorganize connectors into Connector Groups.
Organize Only Connector(s) from Model
Only reorganize connectors from the model. Connectors that are present in other Connector Groups will not be reorganized.
Delete Cleared ConnectorGroup(s)
Delete previous Connector Groups which become empty after connectors are organized into new Connector Groups based on the reorganization schema setting.
Reorganization schema
Choose one of the following:
  • Select Create one group per link combination to organize connectors by creating new Connector Groups based on their connector link information. For example, if connectors are connecting components with ID 1 and 2, then a new Connector Group will be created with the name “Comp1_Comp2”, and all of the connectors that connect those two components will be organized in to this newly created Connector Group.
  • Select Create one group per include to organize connectors by creating new Connector Groups based on the Include file to which the connectors belong to. For example, if connectors belong to the Include file with ID ‘10’, then a new Connector Group will be created with name “Include10”, and all of the connectors will be organized in to this newly created Connector Group.
Show All Turn on the display state of all entities.
Show None Turn off the display state of all entities.
Reverse Reverse the display state of all entities.
Configure Browser Opens the Configuration Window dialog.
Context menu options change when you right-click on entities. The context menu options vary based if you right-click on a Connector Group or Component Link/Property Link/Part Link. Right-clicking in empty space displays the following:
Option Description
Duplicate Create a new, empty Connector Group.

If Duplicate is used on a Connector Group that has the name “Connector_Group_1”, a new, empty Connector Group with the name “Connector_Group_11” is created.
Rename Rename a Connector Group.
References Open the Reference Browser and review a list of all Connectors Groups and Connectors that belong to that Connector Group.
Delete Delete selected entity.

In the Confirm dialog, select the Retain Connectors and move to Model checkbox to only delete the Connector Group, and move the connectors that belong to the deleted Connector Group to the Model.

By default, both the Connector Group and all the connectors that belong to the Connector Group are deleted.
Empty Open the Delete Entity dialog, from which you can choose which empty Connector Groups to delete.
Configure Browser Opens the Configuration Window dialog.
Right-clicking on a Component Link, Property Link, or Part Link opens the following context menu options:
Option Description
Convert Links(s) Convert existing link type on connectors to: Part, Comp, or Prop.

Connector link conversion requires a clear 1:1 relation between a component and a property, otherwise the conversion is not unique and cannot be performed.
Remove From Connectors Remove links from connectors.

This option works on selected/displayed/all connectors. Use the update layer option to automatically update layers once links are removed.
Find / Find with FE The selected links and all connectors referencing them are isolated in the graphics area. The links as well as the linked connectors are highlighted in their browsers.

This Find operation considers only the realization and fit view buttons. When the realization button is active, Find changes to Find With FE.
Find Attached / Find Attached with FE The selected links, all connectors referencing them, and all links referenced by these connectors are isolated in the graphics area. All the found links as well as the linked connectors are highlighted in their browsers.

This Find Attached operation considers only the realization and fit view buttons. When the realization button is active, Find Attached changes to Find Attached With FE.
Find Between / Find Between with FE The selected links and connectors that link them together are isolated in the graphics area. All the found links as well as their shared connectors are highlighted in their browsers.
This Find Between operation considers only the realization and fit view buttons. When the realization button is active, Find Attached changes to Find Attached With FE.
Note: The type of connector to find by this action can be set in the options tab of the Link Entity Browser Configuration dialog. By default, a connector which references at minimum two of the selected links is treated as a "between" connector.
Show Shows selected entities.
Hide Hides selected entities.
Isolate Displays only the selected entities, turning their display state to on and turning all other entities of the same type off. Isolate works locally within a specific entity type – for example, if component(s) are isolated, then all display states of other displayable entities, such as load collectors, remain untouched.
Tip: Only show the isolated links in the browser by selecting (last_celink_review) from the query build drop-down menu.
Isolate Only Works like Isolate, except that it also affects entity types different from the matching, selected entities. Thus, it turns off ALL displayable entities, regardless of type, except for the selected one(s).
Column Visibility Opens the Column Visibility dialog. Checkboxes are used to control, which columns should be shown in the browser.
Configure Browser Opens the Configuration Window dialog.

Configuration Window

In the Browser Configuration dialog you can alter the columns that display in the Link Entity Browser, and change how special features, such as the find between, operate.

Access the Browser Configuration dialog by right-clicking in the Link Entity Browser and selecting Configure Browser from the context menu.

Local Options

Max Link Column Viewed
Only display the specified number of columns, regardless of how many links are available in a connector. The maximum number of supported columns is 30.
Show Primary Links Only
By default, both primary and secondary links are displayed in the Connector Entity browser. To only display primary links, select the Show Primary link only checkbox.
By default, a node link is also displayed as a component link in the Component link view. For example, components are shown as a link when a node that belongs to an element belongs to a component, an element belongs to a component, or a surface belongs to a component.
When Show Primary Link Only is selected, the Part link view only displays real part links and the Component link view only displays real component links. Use the table below to determine which link types will be interpreted as a component or park link based on view you are using.
Link Type Component Link View Part Link View
Show Primary Links Only: off Show Primary Links Only: on Show Primary Links Only: off Show Primary Links Only: on
Nodes yes no yes no
Elements yes no yes no
Components yes yes yes no
Assemblies yes no no no
Parts no no yes yes
Properties no no no no
Surfaces (geom) yes no yes no
Tags no no no no
Consider Geometry
Consider geometry along with elements while using Show/Hide/Isolate operations.
Figure 5. Consider Geometry: Off


Figure 6. Consider Geometry: On


Consider HAZ Elements
Consider HAZ elements while using Show/Hide/Isolate operations. When this option is on, and if connectors are isolated, HAZ elements are also isolated along with connectors and their links.
Available for Connector Configure browser options.
Figure 7. Consider HAZ Elements: Off. HAZ elements of hexa Nugget connectors are not isolated along with connectors and linked components.


Figure 8. Consider HAZ Elements: On. HAZ elements of hexa Nugget connectors are isolated along with connectors and linked components.


Find Twin Connectors
Select how two connectors are found:
Minimum two links
Find only the connectors that have two or more matching links.
Exact links
Find only the connectors that have the same links. For example, if you start with a connector that has two links, than another connector with three links will not be found even if its first two links matched.
Find Connectors Between With
Select how connectors between selected links are found:
Minimum two selected links
Only connectors that link to at least two selected entities will be affected. Connectors with only one link to any of the selected entities will be ignored.
Exact selected links
Only connectors that link to the selected entities will be affected. This can vary from the Minimum two selected links option, because connectors with three or more links which link two selected entities with at least one unselected entity, would still be found by the Minimum two selected links option but not by this one.
All selected links
Any connector shared by the selected entities will be found.
Note: Connectors which link selected entities to any unselected ones will not be found, as they are not located between the selected entities.
Filter Links To
Choose which links to filter when performing search/isolation functions.
Projection Components
Isolate the entire link component.
Projection Elements
Isolate only the elements on which a projection falls.
Projection and Attached Elements
Isolate only the elements on which the projection falls and the elements which the connector FE connects.
Filter Links To Projection Components Projection Elements Projection and Attached Elements
Spots
Figure 9.


Figure 10.


Figure 11.


Seams
Figure 12.


Figure 13.


Figure 14.


Bolts
Figure 15.


Figure 16.


Figure 17.


Global Options

Autocolor Visualization Mode
With this mode activated, the Connector Browser takes over the control of the element visualization mode. Elements will be colored by component, by property, or by part, depending on which connector link view is activated.
Live-filtering
Filter items in real time.
On this page
  • View Option Toggle Buttons
    • Cumulative Effect of Multiple Options
  • Context Menu
  • Configuration Window
    • Local Options
    • Global Options

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