×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

SolidWorks 2003 Sheet Metal/Surfacing

SolidWorks 2003 Sheet Metal/Surfacing

SolidWorks 2003 Sheet Metal/Surfacing

(OP)
I have a situation where I have the flat layout profiles of some sheet metal parts and need to put them in thier formed view. The shape is pretty much formed by the two mating seams. (picture a banana, peeled it has 4/5 sides, when you stitch those seams, the shape should snap back)
This is a reverse engineering thing.
Any suggestions on how to do this?
PS- there are no nice 90 degree bends, it is a like a boat hull

RE: SolidWorks 2003 Sheet Metal/Surfacing

SW will only perform a bend on straight lengths.

If you had a flat pattern model (assuming it has no feature data) you could look into Flat Bends in Help for an answer.

If you have a flat pattern model (assuming you do have feature data) try looking for features that are supressed, like Process Bends.

"The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

RE: SolidWorks 2003 Sheet Metal/Surfacing

(OP)
there are no models yet. I have a manual drawing which gives me the profile of the flat pieces and some fo the formed dimensions.1 welded piece out of 4 bent pieces.
Also it doesn't have to be in sheet metal, could just be a surfacing function?

RE: SolidWorks 2003 Sheet Metal/Surfacing

There is noe straight forward way to do this in solidworks, as mentioned above the sheet metal thing can only faltten straight bends like the ones you would create by using a press brake... short of that, you can model more complex sheetmetal parts and "flatten" them by using configurations of the part, but this requires you to know HOW the part will look in the unfolded state... sort of faking a flattened sheet metal part...

sounds to me like what you want to do is model the part in solidworks, and export the outer surface of the model and use a third party application that can unfold complex shapes such as FTI's FastBlank software

Hope that helps a little

Regards,
Jon
jgbena@yahoo.com

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources