Frame Techniques

[collegekid]

Greetings,

For senior design, my class is participating in the SAE MiniBaja competition. We want to use SW to model the parts. We were curious what is the best way to go about modeling the frame (essentially tube with bends and welds) Any ideas?

 

[swertel]

There are several ways to do this and it depends on what information you want to pull out of the models.

If you want some Bill-of-Material (BOM) information, then model each tube that you would cut and prepare as seperate parts, including end conditions, and mate them together in an assembly. You can add weld beads in the assembly, but I'd skip it and just call the information out on the drawing unless you REALLY need to show it.

I would actually control the parts with a sketch in the assembly. That way, you modify the assembly sketch, if your frame changes, and all the parts update.

If you don't want BOM information, just create one part with a big sketch of the frame and sweep a tube cross-section through it. No need to worry about end conditions of tubes that way.

What school are you from? I may have a conflict-of-interest if you're not my alma mater.

You should also check out the comp.cad.solidworks newsgroup. Lot's more people there that would love to help you with this.

--Scott