Using Bearing Connectors

Use a bearing connector when the housing is not much stiffer than the shaft. If the components supporting the shaft are much more rigid than the shaft, use a bearing fixture.

When defining a bearing connection, follow these guidelines:

• You define a bearing connection between two bodies. For additional bodies, define separate connections.
• A bearing connection does not consider the actual bearing geometry. If you defined bearing geometries, suppress them in the FeatureManager design tree.
• You must split the cylindrical face of the shaft that represents the contact area between the shaft and the housing.
• The feature supports the selection of multiple concentric faces of the shaft and housing.
• Although not recommended, you can select a circular shell edge for the housing if you model the housing as a surface.

  Isometric View	Front View

  In the figure, the blue circle is the shell edge selected for housing. t is the thickness of the shell. The distance between the split lines should also be t.

• You can use the self-alignment option for this type of connector. The behavior is the same as that for the bearing fixture although the results may vary as the housing is not rigid and ground.
• You can define contact conditions between the face of the shaft and the housing.
• You must probe stress results far away from the connector to avoid capturing any stress concentration effects.
• After running a simulation, the bearing forces you can list on a connector are shear force, axial force, and bending moment. Torque moment is not a valid result as bearing connectors are not designed to transmit any significant value of torque. From the Simulation study tree, right-click the Results folder and select List Connector Force . Select a bearing connector or all bearing connectors to view the forces.