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Now you can define the first set of spot welds in the design.
You should read Defining weld points to become familiar with the Spot Weld tool before you continue.
The four tool guide for the Spot Welds tool are:

Select Base Faces tool guide selects the face or faces on which the weld points
will be defined. You should select a single face or a chain of tangent faces.
Select Guiding Edges tool guide defines the edge along which the weld points
will be defined.
Select Mating Faces tool guide changes the mating face from the face that is
automatically detected. You can select more than one face. Clicking on a mating
face removes all previously selected faces and holding Ctrl adds a face.

Complete tool guide completes the spot weld definition.

Define spot welds

1. Click Spot Weld in the Define group on the Prepare tab.

2. Select the base face. This is the face or faces on which the weld points will be defined. You should select
a single face or a chain of tangent faces.
1. The Select base face tool guide should be active.
2. Move your mouse over the red face shown here:

3. Scroll the mouse wheel forward to select the bottom face:

Note : If the navigation options located in the File menu have been changed, then you will need
to hold Ctrl as you turn the scroll wheel.
This is the face or faces on which the weld points will be defined. You should select a single face o
a chain of tangent faces.

3. Select the guiding edge. This is the edge along which the weld points will be defined. The tool searches
for mating edges.
 1. The Select guiding edges tool guide should be active.
2. Select the forward edge of the base face:

The spot welds will be placed along this edge:

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Spot weld options control how the spot welds are applied in relation to the guiding edge. The values are
displayed in the Options panel when the Spot Weld tool is active and in the Design window when you
select a weld joint. You can change the values in the Options panel or in the Design window by tabbing
between the boxes.
The Options panel looks like this:

Change spot weld options

Change the Start offset, Edge offset, and End offset to 2.

The placement of the spot welds changes accordingly.

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You can select another base face to simultaneously create another spot weld on that face.

Add another face

1. Click the Select base faces tool guide.

2. Select the lower face of the red part toward the back of the design:

3. Click the Select guiding edges tool guide.

4. Select the far edge of the base face:

An identical pattern of weld points is added to the second base face, using the same options as the first
base face.

Complete the spot weld definition

1. Click the Complete tool guide to complete the spot weld.

The spot welds are displayed as light blue dots in the Design window :

The spot weld joint is also added in the Structure tree :

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Define a spot weld joint for multiple mating faces

1. Click Spot Weld in the Define group on the Prepare tab.

2. Select this face as the base:

3. Select this edge as the guiding edge:

4. Click the Complete tool guide to complete the spot weld.

The weld joint will look like this:

The blue and black dots represent node pairs and the gray dots represent missing nodes.
You should also see another spot weld joint in the Structure tree .
5. Next we want to make a pattern of the yellow component to see how ANSYS handles instances:

1. Click Move in the Edit group on the Design tab.

 2. Select Create patterns in the Options panel .
3. Select the component named wall in the Structure tree .
4. Move the component up by dragging the blue axis of the Move handle.
5. Press the space bar and type 4 to set the pattern count, like this:

6. Press Tab and type 20 to set the distance, like this:

Now you have a pattern of components. Each member of the pattern is an instance, so a change
to one will change all of the copies in the pattern.

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The spot weld joint for the yellow component is out-of-date. Let's update it and redefine the mating face.

Update spot welds and mating faces

1. Update the spot welds:

1. Find the spot weld joint with a warning icon in the Structure tree :

2. Right-click the spot weld joint and select Detect Mating Faces.

The spot weld has detected all parallel faces within the search range. The search range is found in
the Properties panel when you select the spot weld joint in the Structure tree .

2. We only want the bottom face on the bottom part defined as the mating face, so let's change it:
1. Click Spot Weld in the Define group on the Prepare tab.
2. Select the second spot weld in the Structure tree .
Now we can edit this spot weld joint.
3. Click the Select mating faces tool guide. This tool guide allows us to choose the mating face,
rather than accepting the mating face that is selected automatically.
4. Rotate the design and select the lower face of the lowest part in the pattern, like this:
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You can simulate seam welds by creating a spot weld joint with closely-spaced spot welds.

Define a seam weld

1. Click Spot Weld in the Define group on the Prepare tab.

2. Select the face shown here:

3. Select the three edges shown in blue here:

You normally must hold Ctrl to select multiple edges; however, you can select multiple edges without
Ctrl when the Select guiding edge tool guide is active.
4. Change the Start offset, Edge offset, and End offset values to 0.
5. Change the Number of points value to 16.
The seam weld is just a series of spot welds, like this:

6. Increase the number of points to 32:

 The more points you make, the closer the joint will be to a continuous weld. The number can be chosen
at your discretion depending on your simulation.
7. Click the Complete tool guide to complete the spot weld.

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Your design is ready to send to ANSYS for analysis. It should look like this:

There are some limitations on sending spot welds to ANSYS Workbench:

Only points with mates can be used for simulation.
You may place weld points between multi-body parts if the two bodies belong to different parts. Spot
welds defined between bodies in the same part are not transferred to simulation.
You can approximate seam welds by placing weld points on the guiding edge with an offset of zero, if
no mating face is found on either side of the base face.

Start ANSYS Workbench and send your design

1. Click ANSYS Workbench on the ANSYS tab.

ANSYS should open and your design should be loaded.
2. Expand the structure tree in ANSYS and you will see the spot welds under the Connections node, like
this:

3. Go back to SpaceClaim and change one of the spot weld joints.

 4. In ANSYS Workbench, right-click the Geometry node and select
Your design should now be up-to-date in SpaceClaim and ANSYS.

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You are here: SpaceClaim add-ins > ANSYS add-in > ANSYS demos and tutorials > Spot welds tutorial
conclusion

Spot weld tutorial conclusion

In this tutorial you learned how to

Define spot weld joints
Change spot weld joints
Launch ANSYS Workbench from SpaceClaim
Send designs to ANSYS Workbench

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