Modifying a Joint Group for Beam Elements in SOLIDWORKS Simulation

When setting up your SOLIDWORKS Simulation Study with beam elements, you may sometimes need to modify the joint group that connects the structural member together. This modification can be done only for a single joint (to add or remove a member from that joint), or you may need to change add/remove multiple joints at the same time.

To modify a joint in SOLIDWORKS Simulation, you should right click on “Joint Group” in your simulation tree and click “Edit”. If you wish to manually change your joints, first you need to make sure you are checking the option “Keep modified joint on update”. This option ensures that your changes will be kept once you update your joints and SOLIDWORKS does not reset your joint modifications.

Keep Modified Joint On Update

If you only wish to change one joint in SOLIDWORKS 2020, you can left click to select the joint from graphics, and then right click on that joint. You will see a pop up box showing all the members that are engaged in that joint and you can select other members to add them to this joint, or deselect the current members to remove them from this list by just left clicking on the beams in the graphics area.

Clicking on the Joint To See its Members

Once you made the changes, you can click on “Calculate” to see their effects.

Recalculating the Joints To See the Changes

By default, SOLIDWORKS creates joints where to beam elements from two members come in contact with each other. If you wish to create joints between non-touching faces you can set the condition to “Treat as joint for clearance less than” and choose a maximum clearance to create a joint. However, you have to be careful to not create additional unwanted joints due to a large clearance number.

Creating Joints for Members With a Clearance