Alibre Design

Chapter 11 - Assembly DesignIn the example shown here, two instances of a piston assembly are placed in theengine assembly. By default, these subassemblies are rigid. Since each pistonsubassembly is treated as a rigid body, it is not possible to properly constrain themsuch that each piston is aligned with its respective cylinder and each connecting rod isaligned with the crankshaft. This is because in order to completely satisfy the set ofconstraints, the piston in the second subassembly must move relative to its connectingrod. You can easily accomplish this by making the second subassembly flexible.‣ To make a subassembly flexible:Right-click the desired subassembly in the Design Explorer and click the Make Flexibletoggle on the pop-up menu.Each part in the subassembly can now be constrained independent of the other parts inthe subassembly. In the example above, it is now possible to properly locate eachpiston subassembly, as shown here:310