How To Resolve The Triple Cons Issues In The Bolt Areas?

In steel construction, bolted connections are a sort of structural joint that is used to link two or more structural elements. A type of threaded fastener known as a bolt has a male thread and a preformed, complementary female thread, similar to nuts. To build a bolted connection, it is crucial to understand the bolt value and joint strength concepts, which are further explored.

Steps to Resolve the Triple Cons Issues in the Bolt Areas

Step-1: Hide Bolts from your CAD geometry

Below are the steps used in Hide: 

• Hide the bolts using Not operation, make sure that you are in PID selection mode while using Not operation. Since the bolts are present in the same PID, you can hide them with a single click.
• In order to hide the bolts, click on Not Icon, enable PID selection and then click on bolts and do a middle-click for confirmation.  (As shown in the below image)
  

• After hiding the bolts you will be able to visualize the triple cons present near the bolt region. (As shown in the below image)
  

Why Do Triple Cons Occur?

Note: Generally, Triple CONS will form if the Edge is shared with more than two surfaces in the model.

As you check the geometry you can observe that the folding of the part is happening in the bolt areas of the sheet metal. (Refer to the area marked in the circle in the image given below)

• The sheet metal is folded in such a way that the distance between the top part and bottom parts is very less.
  
  
• Due to the very less distance between the two plates, Triple Cons are formed by ANSA by mistake in the bolt region by pasting the top and bottom double cons together which is not the correct representation.
  
  
• The image given below shows the top part and bottom parts of the folding area.

Now we will see how to convert Triple Cons into two Double Cons.

Step-2:  Releasing the Triple Cons

Release the triple con using the Release tool in CONS. (As shown in the below image)

• After selecting the Release tool, select the triple cons and do a middle click for confirmation.  (As shown in the below image)
  

• You can visualize that the cons are released.  (As shown in the below image)
  

• Now we can see that the bottom surface of the top folded part and the top surface of the bottom part are separated.

Step-3: Performing Topo Operation after releasing Triple Cons

• Both the Single Cons on top and bottom indicate that the surfaces are not attached to their adjacent surfaces.
• In order to paste the surfaces, we need to perform a Topo operation.
• Check out the image given below to find the Topo tool:

• Performing Topo operation on the top part and bottom part separately allows you to join two Single Cons and will form Double Cons.
• Zoom into the region which is shown in the below image and make the box selection.
  
• After selecting the Topo function select these Cons using the box selection as shown in the below image.
  

• After selecting the Topo function select these Cons using the box selection as shown in the below image.
  

For Information: 

In order to select the region by box selection perform: Shift + left click + Mouse drag-

In order to deselect the region by box selection perform: Shift + Right click + Mouse drag- 

• On middle-click confirmation, those Single Cons will be converted to Double Cons (i.e top circular surface is pasted to its adjacent surface.)
  

• Similarly, do the box selection for the bottom part as shown below.
  

• Do middle-click for confirmation, you can see both Single CONS lines are now converted as Double CONS lines as shown below image.
  

• Hence the top and bottom plates are joined to their respective adjacent surfaces.
• The unwanted triple CONS are removed from geometry by following these steps.