Assign physical properties to components to calculate assembly weight and volume, to locate a center of gravity, and to export data to another application for further analysis.
Analyzing physical properties helps you evaluate how your designed model correlates to its physical counterpart. To verify design intent, you can calculate physical properties for both parts and assemblies.
Mass properties are not automatically updated with model changes. If model changes affect physical properties, the last known values become out of date and display N/A.
BOM expressions and drawing text may display physical properties (mass, volume, area, and density). N/A is displayed in BOM expressions and drawing text whenever model properties are out of date.
It is useful to assign physical properties to components to calculate assembly weight and volume, to locate a center of gravity (for placement of a handle that is critical for balance, for example), and to export data to another application for further analysis.
You can specify different materials for individual components, set analysis tolerances, and calculate values such as:
Many designers place a single occurrence of a small part such as a rivet or screw in an assembly, knowing that the final assembly requires thousands of the same item. Designers trade the advantage of faster loading and updating of the assembly for accuracy, knowing that they can override the calculated number of occurrences with the correct count in the bill of materials.
The calculation of physical properties includes quantity overrides and cosmetic welds.
User-defined override values are allowed for both mass and volume. By entering your own values, you can adjust for and accurately represent the true physical mass and volume of selected components that cannot be modeled, such as oil or grease added to a completed assembly. Override values also offer more accurate modeling when working with simplified representations, such as an assembly in which multiple fasteners are represented only as centerlines.