HOW TO CONNECT LINK180 ELEMENT FOR A 3D TRUSS ANALYSIS

- January 17, 2020 at 12:17 pm
  
  saiprathap123
  Subscriber
  
  HELLO,
  
  I AM MODELING A 3D TRUSS BRIDGE IN ANSYS WORKBENCH USING LINK180 ELEMENT. HOW TO CONNECT THE LINK180 ELEMENT USING AS PINNED CONNECTION. I AM NOT ABLE TO USE END REALSE CONNECTION.
- January 17, 2020 at 2:27 pm
  
  ErKo
  Ansys Employee
  
  Link180 are truss elements (transmit force only along the axis of the elements so they do not have bending stiffness only axial stiffness), so they do not have any rotations, just 3 translational degrees of freedom per node.
  
  Thus we do not need and can not end release a link element since it does not have rotations.
  
  For more info see the help manual on link180.
  
  Also here is a video of how to model with links (you do not need the command snippet since now we can select from the GUI )
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYtrufszGM8
  
  Erik
- January 20, 2020 at 2:50 pm
  
  ErKo
  Ansys Employee
  
  I would not recommend using joints for simple truss/beam models.
  
  Just use a single part for all beams like in the video or by using multi body parts in Design modeler.
  
  Alternatively if every line body is a part use the merge nodes (mesh) option to connect the nodes at the common vertex between line bodies.
  
  See here on how to do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7UVzKSXjWM