Ball Joint Connector The Ball joint component can be used to model ball joints, hinges and universal joints. The component has zero length, and adds 6 degrees of freedom to the system model. The forces due to mass and weight are assumed to act at the nodal point at which the component is specified. The Ball joint component should be used with care at supernodes with user defined boundary conditions for rotations to avoid singularities in the FEM solution procedure. It is is recommended to use the flex-joint component whenever possible. The ball joint connector, gets the stiffness from the element that it is connected to. If the degree of freedoms are are fixed, there are still some elasticity in rotations and translations Nodal Body Flex Joint Connector