Fan blades
Fan blades
(OP)
What is the best way to get realistic looking fan blades for a turbine engine fan (airliner engine)? I am having problems getting the correct orientation on the blades. Any tutorials available out there to let me see it up close?
Thanks in advance
Chris
Thanks in advance
Chris






RE: Fan blades
There are not any books or how to's that I know of, for making certain items. It all varies depending of the Designer or Engineer.
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP

3DVision Technologies
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
When in doubt, always check the help
RE: Fan blades
Look up Multibody Overview in the help they show an example of creating a spoke between an axle and rim. It looks like this could be useful for doing fan blades also.
DG
RE: Fan blades
I drew blades for a cooling fan by selecting the centre plane, drawing a closed spline and extruding it to the inside diameter of the fan housing. I added a little draft angle to make it look good. I had to wiggle my sketch and the draft angle a bit, but now it looks realistic. I used a polar array to create the complete set of blades.
All I achieved here was something that looked neat. If I was actually designing the fan, I would have to come up with something a lot fancier.
Consider how complicated your final model is going to be. If you model several hundred turbine blades, your update times might be a problem.
Can you model the blades as rectangles? They will not stand close inspection, but the drawings should look okay.
Consider modeling the volume occupied by the turbine blades as a single solid. Set the end surfaces to slightly transparent. The 3D model could wind up looking very good, with almost no impact on update time. This is a great way to do grilles.
JHG
RE: Fan blades
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP

3DVision Technologies
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
When in doubt, always check the help