I have a Validation > Analysis > General > Supports > “Support Collision” error. Why do I get this and how do I resolve it?

Question

I have a Validation > Analysis > General > Supports > “Support Collision” error. Why do I get this and how do I resolve it?

Answer

If you hover over one of the problem items a tooltip is displayed “Two supports have been defined at a node”.



We can double click the “Support collision” error or items listed under the branch to highlight the selected items with the issue. Alternatively, you can right click and choose Highlight Items from the context menu. If the items are not visible in the active scene view then the view will automatically switch to the Structure 3D scene view with the selected items highlighted and their properties displayed in the Properties window ready for review or editing.



If we look at the support references in the Project workspace > Status window we can see that SUP A/1 collides with SUP A/1 - they both have the same reference and hence two supports exist at the same location in the model. This can be confirmed by hovering the mouse over the intersection point and reviewing the Select Entity tooltip. Both support references are shown in the list.



To resolve, select one of the supports, the Properties window will confirm that 1 support item is selected, and then either use the Delete key on the keyboard or the Delete command available via the Quick access toolbar or Edit ribbon to remove it from the model.



If you undertake a Validation again, the support collision no longer occurs at the intersection point A/1.



In our example, we need to repeat the process to delete one of the supports at intersection point B/1. We will then find that no validation errors of the type “Support collision” are reported after a further validation command is undertaken.