Adaptive Spring (Animation) - Autodesk Inventor Assembly Tutorial | Autodesk Inventor 2021 IN DEPTH

[Calm Hip-Hop Music] Hey everybody it's Alex with Engineering Applied  in this video I’ll be showing you how to create   and animate adaptive springs within an Autodesk  Inventor assembly file if you want more easy to   understand and practical content like this  made by an experienced engineer like myself   make sure you like this video subscribe to the  channel and turn on notifications so you don't   miss out on any helpful content like this in the  future if you're looking for a specific function   check the description for time stamps and if you  don't find what you're looking for in this video   make sure you check out the other videos in my  Autodesk Inventor series playlist because I know   you'll find exactly what you need there let's get  started okay everybody so here we are in our blank   assembly file and for this particular lesson I’ll  be breaking this up into two main examples our   first example consists of a simple application for  this adaptive spring and that is a bottom plate   that's stationary we have a top plate that moves  down and as it moves down it compresses the spring   now for the second example we'll be taking a  look at a valve train assembly which consists of   a rotating camshaft that pushes up on a follower  which causes a rocker arm to pivot and push down   on a valve now attached to this valve there's a  valve spring retainer that compresses the spring   so this should make for a very cool visual  and it'll allow you to see a more advanced   use case for this particular function now let's  go ahead and get started with our first example   so what we need to do here is we need  to go ahead and place a couple of these   base plates that allow for the compression of  the spring so we'll go to base plate okay and   I’m going to right click to go into my marking  menu and I’m going to click on place grounded   at origin because I want this bottom plate to  remain stationary so I’ll just click on that   and it'll drop that first one down now let's  go ahead and drop another one but let's first   rotate this so that the pocket faces down more  so this little opening on the top we need that   to face downwards so we'll right click rotate  about z we'll do that twice and then let's   left-click to drop it anywhere okay and once we  do that we'll right-click to go into our marking   menu and click ok and there we go now we need to  create a mate between these two components to get   them aligned vertically to do that I’m going to  go up to constrain and I’m going to use the mate   variant up here in the assembly tab and I’m just  going to select the cylindrical face of both parts   and that aligns both their central axis elements  to one another so then we'll go ahead and click   ok and then now I can just sort of click and drag  this top one up and down but it remains vertical   with respect to the central axis of these two  components so once we have that set up we need   to set up a mate constraint between this face  here and this pocket and this face down here   and the reason why we're doing that is this  will allow us to drive that constraint or the   distance between these two components so that  we can see the compression of the spring now   if you're unfamiliar with how to create assembly  constraints I encourage you to pause this video   and then go watch my assembly constraints tutorial  video so that you can resume this one with as much   information as possible because it's important  that you are aware of all of the tools that are   available and how to use these constraints to get  this adaptive spring to move in the way that you   want it to moving on let's go ahead and create  our secondary mate constraint so we'll leave   the type set to mate and we're going to set an  offset between this face and this top pocket   and this face and the bottom pocket okay so I’m  going to select those two faces and I’m going to   set this offset to one and a half inches okay so  this is the uncompressed resting position of the   spring and I’m going to give this a custom name  so that I know which mate to drive when we go to   actually drive this spring movement so I’m going  to just type "mate - drives spring" okay and as your   assemblies get larger it's always a good idea to  apply custom names to your constraints so that you   know exactly what you're looking at so we'll go  ahead and click ok now let me go ahead and give   you a quick preview of how this top plate moves so  going under the relationships folder here in the   model browser we're going to go to that second  mate constraint that we created so this is the   offset between this face here and this face here  and we're going to right click and go to drive   now that we're in our drive menu let's go ahead  and take a look at a couple key parameters so this   first box houses our start parameters so this is  our starting offset between these two faces that I   designated okay this is our end parameter so this  is where the top plate will end up in relation to   this bottom plate with regards to that offset so  between this face down here and this face up here   it will have an offset of one and a quarter inches  okay let's open up our extended menu by clicking   these double arrows and then I want to just  mention here I have the drive adaptivity option   checked so when you have adaptive entities in your  assembly you want to make sure this is checked   when you're driving those parts or else it'll  break your simulation so we want to leave that   checked and then let's go down to the increment  section so I set it as a function a total number   of steps okay and I have 50 steps so when we have  the spring here it's essentially going to redraw   that spring 50 times as it compresses so that's  what's actually displaying that compression of   the spring so now let's go ahead and just hit  this reverse button and you'll see the top plate   moves down by a quarter of an inch and then  we can go forward and it'll move back up again   now let's go ahead and draw up our spring so  we're going to go to the create command under   the component section and I’m going to rename  this component I’m going to call this spring   example one and uh we're saving it as a standard  part file and it's saved in the correct location   we'll click ok and we'll select this face here as  our starting reference plane and when we do that   it automatically opens up the editing menu for  this particular spring so I’m technically still   in the assembly file but I’m actually editing that  spring part that I just created let's go ahead and   start our first sketch so we'll open up this  origin folder under the spring part okay and   let's look at a plane that we want to sketch on so  let's actually sketch on the xz plane so I will   right click on that and go to new sketch and here  we're going to sketch the cross section profile   of the spring itself so this is where I start  referencing and projecting the geometry of these   other two plates in my assembly let's go ahead  and start projecting our geometry so I’m going to   click on project geometry and I’m going to project  this edge on the bottom of this pocket here   and then this edge on top remember since we're  on a two-dimensional plane when we project these   circular elements it'll just show up as a line  okay and what we're going to do is we're going to   put a driven dimension between these two lines  okay so we're going to put a distance dimension   between these two lines and it's going to  give me an error and it basically says that   this dimension will over constrain the sketch and  it's asking me whether or not I want to leave it   as a driven dimension so I want to go ahead and  accept that and you'll notice around the dimension   value it puts parentheses that means that this  is a driven dimension meaning that this actually   isn't driving the offset it's the offset that's  driving the number inside of this field okay but   that's really important because we can reference  this particular driven dimension which will then   drive the height of the spring so as this top  plate moves down it changes the overall height   of the spring and that's what gives you the  appearance of compression in your spring so now   that we have that we need to create a couple other  elements here so we need to go ahead and create   a vertical axis so we'll just pick up the center  point here and just bring up a line and we'll go   ahead and just right click and go to ok and then  we're going to change these three entities to   reference geometry so I’m just going to highlight  all of those right click and go to construction   because this is all just for reference and  the last thing we need in this particular   sketch is we need the cross section shape of  our spring so I’m going to drop a circle here   okay let's go ahead and dimension that so this is  I want it to be 0.135 inches okay and I want this   to be tangent to this bottom line because I want  the spring to set flush on this bottom surface   here but I want to go ahead and set the radius  of the spring or you know of course you double   the radius you get the diameter of the spring so  we'll go to ok and we'll set a distance parameter   between the center of the circle and this  center axis here and I want that to be 0.450   okay and you'll see we have a little extra gap  on the side there just to account for tolerances   and that looks good to me so what I’ll do is I’ll  finish this sketch and now let's take a look at   creating the actual coil or the spring itself  to do that we're going to use the coil command   up here at the top now if you're unfamiliar with  how to use the coil command I encourage you to go   watch the video I made on that because it goes  through all of the specific details that are   associated with using this particular tool okay  so you'll see that my profile is pre-selected   that's this circular cross section shape if it's  not pre-selected you just want to click inside of   this box and you'll get this little blue line that  pops up okay that says that this profile selection   filter is active so we can just hover over our  profile and left-click and then we want to click   in our axis selection filter box and you'll see  we got our blue line so let's go ahead and select   this axis that I put into the sketch okay and  you'll see it gives me a preview of the coil now   we want to make sure our method is set properly  for this particular use case which revolution and   height is what I want to use so it's going  to count how many turns are in this coil   and then its overall height so this looks good to  me now we're going to clear the height box and um   so to have the proper adaptive characteristics  of this spring you want to go over to the right   and click on this little arrow okay and we're  actually going to use this driven dimension   that we created earlier as this height okay so  as this plate changes its position in relation   to the bottom one this number will change and it  will set the height value which will effectively   redraw the spring every time this plate moves  so that's going to give us the appearance of   a compressing and decompressing spring let's  go ahead and click on select feature dimension   and let's hover over our driven dimension that we  want to pick up but notice it doesn't allow us to   click on that so all we have to do is go back  to this height field click on that arrow and   then click on select feature dimension again and  now we can click on this dimension you'll see we   get our little function symbol that pops up to the  right of the mouse cursor when we click on that it   populates the height field with a tag designated  as "d0" so this tag is essentially just a name   that's associated with this particular dimension  here okay so depending on how many dimensions you   have before this particular one in your assembly  this could be called "d5" "d10" so on and so forth   but again since I didn't know what this particular  dimension was called that's why I used that select   feature dimension option now before we move on I  need to add another element to this height setting   because if I were to just click ok some of  the spring would be cut off at the top here   um so we need to take away the diameter of the  cross section to account for that so we'll just   add this here that says minus 0.135 which is  the diameter of the cross section for the spring   and now when it draws the spring it'll set flush  against this top face and again I have my close   start and close end settings set appropriately  such that I get a little bit more of the spring   setting flush to either one of these surfaces  so I’ll click ok and it draws up the spring so   let's go ahead and take a section view of that go  to view half section view and then we'll select   the end of the spring so let's find that there  okay and you'll see so the top of the spring   is setting flush on this face and then uh the  bottom portion of the spring is setting flush   on this face so that's exactly what we want  okay so we'll just go ahead and exit out of that   and let's go ahead and drive this assembly so  what we want to do first is we want to click   this return button to actually get out of the  editor for this part here so we can hit return   and now we're actually back in our assembly  file so we're at the assembly level again   and I want you to go ahead and take note of  this little symbol here so this blue and red   arrow okay so that's essentially just designating  this particular part as an adaptive part meaning   that it's referencing geometry in the assembly  and it's subject to change based on the position   of the geometry in the assembly itself okay so  what we want to do is we want to right click   on this mate that actually drives the location of  this top plate we're going to right click on that   and go to drive and let's just verify that all of  our settings are properly set so our start looks   good our end setting looks good okay so we're  getting a quarter of an inch of compression   and we have this drive adaptivity box checked  so again that will allow these adaptive parts to   change as the location of the parts that they're  referencing are moving okay and then our increment   looks good so we're taking 50 steps here so we'll  go ahead and hit this reverse arrow and see what   happens so as we hit reverse you'll see the spring  is beginning to compress and again so every step   or every increment the spring is essentially  being redrawn so let's go back forward again   to the decompression okay we'll let it extend all  the way now let's set the end point to something   larger so let's set it to 1.75 so it's actually  going to extend beyond its resting position so   you can actually make springs that also extend  okay so you see the spring is being stretched out   so this works in both directions so we'll go  ahead and hit cancel there and now let's jump   to our more complicated second example where  we take a look at a valve train assembly okay   here is our sample valve train assembly and before  we go ahead and draw up the spring here I want to   go ahead and simulate the motion of this assembly  so we can see what's going on so I’ll go ahead   and drive this camshaft drive angle constraint  we'll hit play you'll see the camshaft rotates   and pushes up on that follower and it pushes down  on the valve okay so what we want to do is we want   to put a spring setting on this surface here and  pushing up against this valve spring retainer okay   and that's what keeps this follower pressed firmly  against the cam surface okay so let's go ahead and   create our valve spring so we'll go to create I’m  going to rename this to "example 2 valve spring"   all right we'll click ok and I’ll select this face  here as our starting plane now we're currently   editing the valve spring part file and so for this  particular example I want to create some reference   geometry in this case that'll be some reference  planes and we'll use that to set the spring gap   and compression we'll come over here and select  the offset from plane option and we'll go ahead   and select this surface here and set it to a  zero offset okay we'll do the same thing up top   set that to zero inches and hit ok ok so now let's  go ahead and start creating our 2D sketch on the   xz plane so we'll right click on that go to new  sketch okay so let's go ahead and start projecting   some geometry so the first bit of geometry that  we'll be selecting here is this surface or this   edge okay so once we have that edge we'll go  ahead and pick up these two edges down here   all right let's go ahead and create a line  across those two and the reason we're doing   this is so we can use the center point here  for our axis all right let's go ahead and   set our general dimension between these two planes  and this will allow us to get our driven dimension   okay and uh now we want to go  ahead and drop our circular profile   set it tangent to this line down here   let's actually set it tangent to the line that's  associated with this plane okay we'll set our gap   all right so this all looks good so  we'll go to ok and finish 2D sketch and   now let's go ahead and create this coil   pick up our axis clear our height field remember  if you can't pick up this dimension after   selecting "select feature dimension" what you can  do is go back to this arrow and then hit select   feature dimension an additional time and then now  we can pick that up we'll go ahead and take away   the diameter of the coil from that and everything  else looks good so we'll hit ok and now let's take   a look at what the driving angle does to this  assembly I’m now back at the assembly level so   let's go ahead and drive this camshaft drive angle  constraint and see what happens with this spring   so let me zoom in just a little bit here and we'll  right click on this go to drive and let's hit play   and you can see the follower moves up the  rocker arm goes down pushes the valve down   which compresses that spring okay so  it's going to go around one more time   now you notice the reference plane on top  is moving down and you know in example one   you saw that we referenced the surfaces directly  on our actual plates this time around we're just   referencing the work planes that are in turn  referencing the solid surfaces themselves   so um you have plenty of flexibility available  to you here and I think this will add a nice   amount of detail to your models that's all for  this segment of the Autodesk Inventor Assembly   Creation Module where I showed you how to create  and animate adaptive springs I really hope that   you found this tutorial to be helpful and that  you put what you've learned into practice so you   can continue developing your skills as you work  your way through these lessons also before you   watch the next video in the series make sure you  subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications   to stay up to date on future content that's  going to help you create the future you want for   yourself and of course don't hesitate to leave  a comment or reach out via my website contact   page and let me know if there's anything else  you'd like to learn about or see on this channel   I really appreciate you choosing to stop by  and learn with me and I’ll see you again soon [Calm Hip-Hop Music]

Channel: Engineering Applied

Views: 4,383

Keywords: autodesk inventor 2021 tutorial, autodesk inventor tutorial for beginners, inventor tutorial 2021, inventor professional 2021 tutorial, inventor 2021, autodesk inventor 2021, inventor 2021 tutorial, autodesk inventor, autodesk inventor tutorial, how to animate springs in autodesk inventor 2021, adaptive spring inventor 2021, autodesk inventor spring animation, adaptive spring inventor, autodesk inventor adaptive spring

Id: a_PvqFGfz5k

Length: 18min 39sec (1119 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 22 2020