revolve a bent solid
revolve a bent solid
(OP)
Hello,
Got a tough one. Customer makes turbines. The blades are very curvy things. He needs to rough this thing on a lathe. I've got the model, but now I need to be able to get a 2d profile of what it would look like if it was revolve around its axis. The blades are ugly curvy things and convert entities won't work.
I've tried making a plane that bisects the blade pretty close, then doing a parting line feature on it. From there I can do some lofted surfaces that use these 3d edges as guide curves and eventually get a 2d profile. And all this just gets me close, but it's not perfect.
Did I mention they *need* to hold 0.0002" tolerances?
Due to NDA this is effectively what I'm working with.
JM
Got a tough one. Customer makes turbines. The blades are very curvy things. He needs to rough this thing on a lathe. I've got the model, but now I need to be able to get a 2d profile of what it would look like if it was revolve around its axis. The blades are ugly curvy things and convert entities won't work.
I've tried making a plane that bisects the blade pretty close, then doing a parting line feature on it. From there I can do some lofted surfaces that use these 3d edges as guide curves and eventually get a 2d profile. And all this just gets me close, but it's not perfect.
Did I mention they *need* to hold 0.0002" tolerances?
Due to NDA this is effectively what I'm working with.
JM






RE: revolve a bent solid
How can you turn a turbine blade on a lathe?
Chris
SolidWorks 09 SP4.1
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: revolve a bent solid
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP![[pc2] pc2](https://www.tipmaster.com/images/pc2.gif)
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RE: revolve a bent solid
I've used this technique on a couple of occasions. The tricky part is determining your "silhouette", as it is the silhouetted through a curved path, not a straighy projection.
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com-SolidWorks API VB programming help
RE: revolve a bent solid
Due to the nature of the turbine blade, the best I've been able to do is to use the "spline on a surface" command. Then I create several lines adjacent to the surface and along X that terminate with the points of the spline.
This is the best I've been able to come up w/. Then sweep, surface loft, etc.
I know that you can't make a turbine on a lathe, but you can rough the shape out before 5 axis milling. As long as they leave enough material, it'll be fine. I would just like to get it 'right' so we don't ruin an expensive blank and waste a bunch of 5 axis mill time.
MasterCAM actually has this feature built into it, but the fact that MasterCAM's archaic CAD system can do something that solidwork's can't is really frustrating.
JM
RE: revolve a bent solid
Just my 2cents. Make sure to turn up the curve accuracy in IMage Quality.
TOP
CSWP, BSSE
www.engtran.com www.niswug.org
"Node news is good news."
RE: revolve a bent solid
Rob Stupplebeen
RE: revolve a bent solid
jm
RE: revolve a bent solid
Second, was the shape of the blade mathematically driven? If so you may be able to create an equation driven curve of the high and low points of the blade and revolve those.
I hope this helps.
Rob Stupplebeen
RE: revolve a bent solid
It's also extremely time consuming and solidworks is thoroughly unhappy about it. Even with the image settings set nearly all the way up the lines and points and surfaces can be annoying and won't immediately select or will declare that it is overdefined even when it isn't. It really just wants to fight me. (I have legit workstation and video card)
There just needs to be a new feature for this.
RE: revolve a bent solid
Brad Stoner
Engineer/Product Development
Legacy Manufacturing
SWx 2006x64 sp4.0
RE: revolve a bent solid
RE: revolve a bent solid
You said it: "The tricky part is determining your "silhouette", as it is the silhouetted through a curved path, not a straighy projection. "
I actually tried this first (see spline on surface )
This worked reasonably well until there was a transition from one surface to the next, then it would just fight me and give me overdefined errors and just suck in general.
btw, creating a circ pattern ended up working pretty well. Only about 130 parts over 15 deg. Chopped it up. Saved it as a part, merged bodies and got it.
Still, none of this is "clean" and all are way more time consuming then they need to be. Still needs to be a feature.
JM