PRIMER 22.1

Manual Versus Automatic Fitting

The documentation below describes how to create a belt path, to fit it to the structure, then mesh it and finally to create a contact between belt and dummy. When a new belt definition is created this process needs to be followed in that sequence, and is referred to as "manual" fitting since it is totally interactive.

Once you have a belt definition in a model you can change the geometry of the model and use the Auto-refit function to repeat the fit / mesh / contact process above in a single automatic step for reasonably simple belt paths. This can be performed both interactively and via batch (command-line) commands. This process is commonly used to perform stochastic analyses where the dummy and seat are moved through a range of positions, refitting the belt automatically each time.

It is also possible to combine these two processes: you can adjust the shape of an existing belt path in the path editor or by external means, then use Auto-refit to perform the fit / mesh / contact process automatically rather than manually. Some users have created processes that update belt path points as well as modifying structure nodes.

Generally speaking:

Manual fitting:	Will delete any existing belt path definitions, sets, contacts, etc Will create a new set of definitions
Automatic refitting:	Will preserve as much of the original definition as possible Will reuse and repopulate existing sets, contacts as much as it can

The choice of processes is up to you, but most users will find that automatic refitting is preferable once a *BELT definition has been created.

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