Analyzing Thickness
Analyzing Thickness
(OP)
Is there a quick way to locating the thickest point on a body that has complex curvature on all faces? For example, when I create an interference body using the simple interference analysis tool I commonly end up with something that has no planar faces. I would like to know the exact point of maximum interference and how much interference that is. This would equate to the thickest point on the interference body but I'm not sure how to exactly locate that point. Perhaps there is a better way to do this type of analysis?
I suppose I am looking for a tool that will allow me to select a non-planar face as the reference face, another non-planar face as the analysis face, and then show me the point of maximum separation between those two faces measured normal to the reference face at that exact point.
Thanks for any help.
I suppose I am looking for a tool that will allow me to select a non-planar face as the reference face, another non-planar face as the analysis face, and then show me the point of maximum separation between those two faces measured normal to the reference face at that exact point.
Thanks for any help.





RE: Analyzing Thickness
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Analyzing Thickness
Analysis -> Molded Part Validation...
...and if this dialog opens, select the Analysis Type 'Thickness' and if there's only one body in the part file it will be selected automatically so all you have to do is select the 'Calculate Thickness' button (it the icon on the left that looks like a 'calculator').
If you don't own the correct modules, then there is very little that can be done to find model thicknesses, at least not without a lot of drudge work.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Analyzing Thickness
RE: Analyzing Thickness
Thanks for the suggestions.
RE: Analyzing Thickness
And YES, this is the "drudge work" I was commenting about, particularly when you compare it to how the 'Mold Part Validation' tools work, which are virtually automatic and requires little or no interactive setup to use.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Analyzing Thickness
@John,
Deviation -> Checking... will definitely show the Maximum or Minimum Deviation point (location) with * on the surfaces, but make sure that you have selected "Maximum Distance" or "Minimum Distance" from the "Deviation Option" dropdown list.
RE: Analyzing Thickness
RE: Analyzing Thickness
Another tip is the Analysis - measure distance if one knows the measuring direction, projected distance - maximum clearance.
RE: Analyzing Thickness
It does report the number of points that are outside the specified tolerance but it also singles out the point of maximum deviation. That is what I needed. I just set the tolerance at .001. The interference body I was looking at was thinner then that everywhere so it just marked the point of max deviation and told me nothing was out of tolerance. It might not have dropped a point on the exact worst case position but I'm very confident it gave me a result that was within .0001 of the actual worst case deviation. For what I'm doing that is good enough.
Maximum clearance is very useful in a lot of situations but because of the geometry that I was working with I just couldn't get what I needed using that. I did try.
Thanks for the tips.