For Motion Analysis studies, having redundant mates is the equivalent of over-defining a SOLIDWORKS model.
For example, consider a door with two hinges. Only one mate can restrict the vertical translation of the door. The other is redundant. You can consider that there is no vertical direction force component on the second hinge. You can see this when you plot the forces.
Before running a study, remove all redundant mates. You can remove all redundant mates manually, or have SOLIDWORKS Motion attempt to remove them automatically.
Automatic redundant constraint handling can yield erroneous results. It is best to define the model such that there are no redundant mates.
To manually remove redundant mates, try one or more of the following, in order:
- Redefine the model such that there are no redundant mates, or as few as possible.
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Identify all the redundant (over-constraining) mates and manually change those mates into bushings on the Analysis tab in the Mate PropertyManager.
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Select Replace redundant mates with bushings in the Motion Study Properties PropertyManager. This option significantly slows down the simulation time, so try this only after exhausting other options.
To specify automatic redundant mate handling in SOLIDWORKS Motion:
- Click Motion Study Properties (MotionManager toolbar).
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Select Replace redundant mates with bushings.
This option replaces any mate that has a redundant component with a bushing. The loads in the system are distributed based on which mates are replaced.