Hi Charles,
Thanks for confirming that Simulate fastener features do not work with drafted holes. That was kind of what I had determined with the testing I have done so far.
Yes, the ground springs are for anti-rotation of the parts that have contacts fully defined.
When I was trying the simulation with just simple Creo Simulate Fastener feature I had no contact regions defined between the parts. I let the Simulate fastener feature control the separation of the parts.
Unfortunately I'm not able to simplify the model for the testing I'm going now do to the current structure geometry.
The second image above shows what I'm currently using for my joint setup where I have fully modeled the joint with solids and have fully added contacts, preload, etc.
I was hoping to start out with simple Simulate fasteners to shake out the model setup before adding all of the additional solid models and contacts.
Thanks
Don Anderosn