Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
(OP)
Hey there.
I'm somewhat of a rookie in SW, so I would like to ask a question.
I've got this flat cone part(I did not make myself), see attached picture, and my goal is to have it folded into a cone. Can you give me any tips on how to do that?
I tried to play with making it a sheet metal to make it fold, however I had no luck yet.
Best regards, Kåre
I'm somewhat of a rookie in SW, so I would like to ask a question.
I've got this flat cone part(I did not make myself), see attached picture, and my goal is to have it folded into a cone. Can you give me any tips on how to do that?
I tried to play with making it a sheet metal to make it fold, however I had no luck yet.
Best regards, Kåre






RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
I've tried to play with the sheet metal bends and I haven't got it to work yet. I remember getting it to fold like a cylinder at some point as you said, but not like a cone.
Do you think it would be possible to create the cone geometry from a sketch with the side and the centerline, revolve the sketch to create the cone, and then add the holes on an unfolded sketch of that cone?
I'm trying it out, but I have some trouble to be able to create the holes on the unfolded geometry.
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
Will the cone be rolled or bumped?
If bumped, add multiple angled Sketch Bends to the flat. This will create a cone with a series of flats ... unless you use a conical die set.
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
Actually what I need from this cone, is to use it as a part in an assembly which I will export a part of to some ANSYS CFD software, and model fluid flow and combustion.
I would want the holes to be circular on the curved surface, so I guess the way to go is to make them directly on the folded cone.
My plan is to make a plane tangent to the angled cone side and create holes/cuts on this plane and then make a circular pattern of these.
It might however be a bit challenging to place the holes 100% correct according to my flat geometry.
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
Play with the attached file and see if it is what you are looking for.
the most difficult part of it is proper positioning which can be achieved by sketches
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
But thanks alot for the input. I'm looking on your SW file right now, and it seems like a way to come around with the hole-making!
It just take quite a while when I'm not used to work in SW.
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
Rob Stupplebeen
https://sites.google.com/site/robertkstupplebeen/
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
I got the cone with holes made now, so that should hopefully be all good.
Now my goal is to make the "inverse/negative" of the geometry I have now, to make the fluid zone a solid instead of the walls. And ultimately take a 1/6 slice of the whole geometry, and then export that to my Ansys CFD software.
Any of you have exprience with that? I'm looking into the mold cavity function in Solidworks now, as that might be a possibility I guess.
RE: Folding a cone of a sheet metal piece
As for the cavity function. I am assuming your cone is going inside a pipe of some sort. Create a solid cylinder that would be the inside diameter of the pipe. Then make an assembly with the cylinder and the cone. Now edit the cylinder from inside the assembly and use the insert\molds\cavity. From there you can select the cone, either from the center of the screen of from the feature tree that appears on the left hand side of the screen next to where the feature tree is usually.