Do you have any recommendations on how to (efficiently) model the connection between two parts bolted together when one is interested in capturing the stiffness of the bolted assembly and don't care about what is happening at the bolts?
I've heard of adding a layer of spring-like elements between the contacting surfaces, but it seems like one would have to tune stiffness of these every time.
Modeling the bolts as well as the contact between the surfaces with a flex-to-flex contact type would probably work, but i can't imagine doing this on a large scale.
