Cylindrical Mesh

[Albright1]

I am trying to create a Cylinder that is made up of 36 individual fibers. When you look at one fiber it creates a helix going up the cylinder. I'm attempting to make the drawing as realistic as possible so the fibers need to be weaving in an out of each other. I created the drawing using sweeps along a helix but this creates intersecting points which i am trying to avoid. If anyone can help me with this or let me know if its even possible i would appreciate it

 

[Theophilus]

This would be a twist instead of a weave. Select your swept helical part and create a circular pattern such that they don't touch. You can check how many you need by creating a sketch with circles representing each strand (in section) to see how many helical pieces you'll need. I've done this when I needed a detailed rendering of a coated cable and it works great.

If you really need a braid or weave, you'll need to do a complicated variation of this method--good luck.

Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Albright1 ... You mean like a braided sleeve with 18 fibres spiralling clockwise & 18 anti-clockwise?

If so that's do-able but, as Theo' said, that would be fairly complicated. You would have to create a Helix, then a 3D sketch in which to convert the helix, then modify that to create the actual interwoven path, then pattern the sweep around the cylinder. Then repeat the process for the opposite rotation fibre.

That would be very resource intensive, so unless you absolutely must have it, it would be better to use a texture.


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[rfus]

Here is a trick I used to make realistic looking cable. This is kind of a twist, but I can think of ways to make it weave. Use a fill feature on a single long circular extrusion which will create your strands in a circular boundary. Then use an extusion at the base to combine all the strands. Take this single body and use it with the flex feature with twisting selected. You can input as many degrees as you want. Hit the check button and get ready to wait. If you don't crash you will have a nice looking helical braid with 36 strands. Apply a texture and it will look cool.

Otherwise, for precision, Helixes and sweeps, but setting this up this is going to take a while.

RFUS

 

[Albright1]

Thanks CorBlimeyLimey that is just what I was attempting to do, and was close to what I was trying. I haven't worked much with 3D sketches so I'm finidng it difficult to convert the helix into a woven pattern. At least I know I’m on the right path but I’ll definitely check with the customer to see what type of detail is needed.

 

[rfus]

This was done using the fill pattern with a flex twist, then a body move/copy and mirror. I then applied the basket texture. It looks like what you want, but I wouldn't send this file to the assembly line.

RFUS

 

[jdg268]

Albright1,
To tag along with the other comments, your 3D sketch could be a spline, which is simple to modify. For the points on the spline that you don't want to intersect with other weave points--you could constrain those points to another sketch, surface, or set of points located further or closer to the center of the cylinder.

John Graham CSWP

Mechanical Design Engineer