Part Physical Properties

Physical Properties (Part)

This command manages or imposes the physical properties of an entity.

Creation stages / Use:

Click the icon or select the Tools > Physical properties... command from the drop-down menu.

Check or not Automatic
Each property can be managed using 3 modes:
- Automatic: TopSolid runs the calculation based on the geometry, material etc.
- Manual: The user sets the value, which can be very useful for an imported part.
- Non-managed: For this document, the property is not managed.

The different types of manageable physical properties are:

- Mass. Option to manage the part's mass.
- Center of density. Option of managing the part's center of density.
- Moments of inertia. Option of managing the part's moments of inertia. In manual mode, the main frame also needs to be selected.
- Surface. Option to manage the part's surface.
- Volume. Option to manage the part's volume.

The checked Automatic option can cause losses of performance while every entity modification causes a new calculation of the checked physical properties.
The values of the different physical properties can be viewed in the Parameters folder of the entities tree.
The values of the different physical properties are only updated when the Analysis stage is activated.
In automatic mode, the main frame for the moments of inertia is the absolute frame.

The mass, the center of mass and the moments of inertia must be managed for the dynamic simulations.
The mass, center of mass and moments of inertia cannot be calculated if No Material is unchecked.
If the mass is managed manually, the others properties (Center of mass, moments of inertia...) must be managed manually too, otherwise they will be calculated with informations of automatic mass.
To display the physical properties in the entity tree, switch to analysis mode.

Modifications / Additional information:

The modification can also be accessed form the Parameters folder of the entities tree using the popup menu on the property.