Reply To: Model order reduction with line bodies

[peteroznewman]

Open the line body geometry in Spaceclaim and use the Share button on the Workbench tab to create shared topology. That will weld all beam and truss bodies into one structure so you won't need any joints.

In Mechanical, the default assignment is BEAM elements.  Select all the truss line bodies and put them in a named selection. Then select them and assign the type to LINK elements.  LINK180 elements have pinned ends because they have no rotational DOF.  Select all the truss line bodies again and assign a Mesh Sizing control to use exactly one element on each body otherwise you will create an unwanted mechanism.