Use a Spring-Damper (
) for 2D and 3D components to model — between two points — an elastic spring, a viscous damper, or both.
The settings are similar to the corresponding settings for the Distance Joint but applied to Spring-Damper. There is however one more alternative for both
Source and
Destination;
Select a connection point. This is the default option, and then you do the actual selections in the
Source Point and
Destination Point subnodes. If you make a nondefault choice for
Source or
Destination, the corresponding selection subnode will be removed.
In large models, the list of available attachments can become very long. You can then create geometric filters to narrow down the search. When the Use selection filter check box is selected, two subnodes named
Source Filter and
Destination Filter are added to the
Spring-Damper node. In these subnodes you can make graphic selections of the objects whose attachments should be shown in the
Source and a
Destination lists.
Select the Deactivation condition check box to enter a
Deactivation indicator expression idac. The expression is treated as a boolean expression, so that when it evaluated to a nonzero value, the spring or damper is deactivated.
Select the Permanently deactivate check box if the spring is supposed to be removed permanently from the simulation when the deactivation condition is fulfilled for the first time.
As an example, if the spring should break at a certain extension, you can write an expression like mbd.spd2.dl>0.12[m], and select the
Permanently deactivate check box. If the check box is not selected, the spring would become active again when its connection points come close enough to each other.