Review an assembly

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Review an assembly.

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In this video, we'll use isolate, identify component properties and we will define physical materials.

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In Fusion 360, we will get started with the supply Dataset, motorcycle rearset - model prep.

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When we take a look at this, we can see in the browser that we have several components including a frame mount, which shows that it's grounded,

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a Peg Pivot and we have a foot peg at the bottom.

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Everything else is going to be associated hardware and we need to determine what components need to be kept in this design,

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what their physical properties are and what we really need for a linear static stress simulation.

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As we look at the design, the more components that are included, the harder it becomes for us to really identify and isolate specific components.

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There are a handful of tools in Fusion 360 that can simplify this process.

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Whenever a new design is created or imported in Fusion 360, the default material is going to be steel,

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which means the appearance of everything is going to have this gray finish.

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This means it's much harder for us to easily identify which components are unique.

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The first thing that I like to do in Fusion 360, when I'm working with an assembly is go to my Inspect dropdown and select Component Color Cycling.

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This will automatically apply a pastel appearance to all of the different components in the design.

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It makes it much easier for us to identify unique components quickly and easily on the screen,

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as well as in the browser and the timeline at the bottom.

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Each of the tools or features that were used to create each of the components are shown and highlighted in the various areas.

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One thing that you might notice happens from time to time is some components will have very similar colors.

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For example, the button, head cap screws as well as the flat head screws that are hidden behind the foot peg.

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These are different colors but they're very similar in nature.

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What we can do to simplify that is right click on one of the components and select cycle component color.

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It will change the color and now you can see that it's closer to the peg pivot.

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So if we do this again and cycle the color now you can see that we have a blue appearance,

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which makes it a little bit easier to identify its unique nature.

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You'll also notice that in some instances other components will change and sometimes they'll stay the same.

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If you have components that are going to be used in an assembly downstream with a detailed drawing in a parts list,

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you want to make sure that they are identical copies of each other,

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and in this case, the name is relatively long but you can see the end of the name has a colon and a one and a colon and a two.

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This means that they're identical copies and that they will show up as a quantity inside of a parts list.

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Again, very important from an assembly structure standpoint; however, it doesn't really affect how we approach our simulation.

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So now we can easily identify the components based on their colors in the canvas area as well as in the browser.

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But what if we want to focus on just an individual component and identify specific features that are used on it.

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We can right click on that component and we can use Isolate.

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Isolate is a very easy tool allowing us to hide all other bodies and components in the design letting us focus on just one specific body or component,

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using this helps us better identify and understand that this design has physical threads on the inside of it,

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and those are going to be problematic for our simulation and something that will have to take care of.

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If we want to bring all the other components back, we can right click on the frame mount and select a nicely.

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There are times when you're working on a large assembly and you might have nested components inside of other components,

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and if you forget which one you selected, we can always right click at the top level and select Unisolate all.

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Unisolate all will bring back all the other bodies and components that were previously visible before using isolate.

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Another thing that we can do is manually hide or show individual components,

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if we simply want to identify certain areas of a design that might be helpful for us to evaluate before we get into a simulation study.

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The next thing that we want to talk about are going to be physical materials or those component properties.

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When we start a static stress simulation, the physical material is carried over from the design into the simulation workspace.

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Oftentimes when you're working on a design, you'll set the physical material here in the design workspace.

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In order to do this, we're going to identify one component in this case a free mount.

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We're going to right click.

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We want to take a look at its physical properties.

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As we look through our list, it's going to be listed as physical material.

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When we select physical material, you'll notice that our component color cycle has gone away temporarily.

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We can still see that the browser shows our colors.

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But because we are dealing with not only the physical material but also the appearances associated with those materials,

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it makes it easier for us to identify any changes that are being made.

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You'll also notice the component in question is shown highlighted on the screen,

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and we can see it's complete silhouette or boundary through the other components.

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The default material in this design is steel but we want to change this bracket to an aluminum 6061.

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So we need to look through our library making sure that we're focused on Fusion 360 material library,

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and we're not looking in the additive or non linear.

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If you use certain materials often you can always add them to your favorites, which will make them easier to find.

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But for us we want to go into metal and begin scrolling down.

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There are a lot of materials in this library and you need to find the one that's applicable for your design,

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and in our case it's going to be an aluminum 6061.

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Once we have 6061 and our components selected, there are a few different ways that we can apply it.

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If we double click on the material, nothing seems to happen.

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If we drag it up to in this design, it is now in the design but it hasn't been applied to anything.

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If we drag it over a material that's already been applied, it will replace all of the materials on all of the bodies and components.

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So the best option that we have is to drag and drop this onto the body or component in the canvas area,

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or to drag and drop it on the component in the browser.

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There are some differences that happen depending on which workflow you choose.

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If we drag it onto the body in the canvas area, it will be applied to that single body.

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However, if we apply it to the component, it will be applied to any body inside of that component.

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There are often times when we want to apply it at a top level.

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For example, if we took aluminum 6061 and we dragged it to the very top level of the design.

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This is going to replace the steel material on all components.

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We're going to use undo because we want to focus our attention on just the frame mount,

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so let's right click and go back to our physical materials and let's take a look at the components that have that aluminum material.

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I'm going to right click on aluminum 6061.

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I'm going to unassign and delete which will remove it from all other components.

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And then once again we're going to scroll down until we find aluminum 6061 in our list.

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We're going to drag and drop it on the component in the browser called frame mount and then we'll close this window.

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Once we do, you can see that our component color cycling has come back,

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we can go back to inspect and we can turn that back off or use the shortcut key shift plus the letter N.

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And now you can see that our bracket is showing in a lighter gray which means that it has a different material.

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We can also go down to the gear icon in the bottom right and turn on what's called a component color swatch.

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This brings those same colors to the timeline as well as the browser.

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However, it doesn't change the appearance of any of the components on the screen.

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We'll go back down to the gear icon and turn off component color swatch.

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Lastly we want to go back to the right click menu on our frame mount and go down to our Properties.

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The Properties are an important aspect of any detail design.

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When we take a look at the properties we have our General, which includes our part number, name and description,

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it lists our material name is aluminum 6061.

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There's a Manage section if you're using some of the life cycle management inside of Fusion 360;

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however, our focus is going to be on the physical materials.

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So under the physical heading, you can see that we now have a mass, volume, density, area,

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as well as some other information that is specific to this component with the aluminum 6061 material.

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In the Design phase, if you're working toward a specific mass, having that material applied can be a critical step in that process.

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So you can identify the mass of the component as you make changes.

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From here, let's go ahead and close and make sure that we do save this design before moving on to the next step.