Thickening a complicated part

[arma1234]

I have a complicated part with 34 faces on 34 different planes. when i try to thicken it i get the error.... "UNABLE TO THICKEN THE SURFACE" when i try to thicking it the thickness i want. 1.25mm. BUT when i thicken it to 3mm or more it works fine. What could possibly be preventing this from thickening at a lesser wall thickness?

 

[StefanHamminga]

Do an offset surface, that way you can see where it goes wrong. (The SW thicken feature uses an offset surface)

Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer/AI student

 

[arma1234]

It will not work with an offset either (i used an offset of 0 from a different part to create these surfaces to start with but, when I try to offset surfaces 1.25mm it says cannot do it, try a smaller offset. How does this help me see where i have a problem? the preview doesn't really show me much.

 

[StefanHamminga]

this would help you, for instance, in case you have too small fillets & the resulting offset surface would cross itself.

Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer/AI student

 

[arma1234]

I have no fillets in my parts at all. ALTHOUGH, i do have several surfaces that are 3d. (slight wave appearance) instead of just a flat 2d surface.

I cant figure out how to post a pic so i cant show u graphically.

 

[arma1234]

this doesnt seem clear to me as to why it would allow it to thicken at 3mm but not 1.25. if there was interference it would be at both sizes would it not?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

See faq559-1100 and faq559-1177 for posting images & files.


Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[rfus]

I bet its your 3d surface. Whats the minimum radius of curvature. Which direction are you thickening. You must be careful what geometries you feed to offset surface and thicken. Can you form a closed solid from your surface and shell it? If you cant this could be from things like filleting to early or not paying attention to your min radiuses of curvature. Or you could have just created and unstable surface to begin with.

Here is a trick I have used. Create a copy of the surface body, then scale it about the centroid, and connect the two surface bodies with various surfacing tools, knit all three together to form a solid.

RFUS

 

[ctopher]

Thanks CBL.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

 

[Theophilus]

I think rfus has it--and what I've seen in my own models is that SW doesn't like it when a shell is attempted such that your offset "wavy" surface appears and disappears at a certain thickness--explaining why a surface might not shell at a thinner distance, but do fine at a thicker distance. This is almost certainly what is happening in your case.

One thing you can do is shell your solid without taking the wavy surface into account. Create your solid without the wavy surface and shell that way. Use your wavy surface to create a surface cut, trim your wavy surface to the surrounding geometry, and then thicken your wavy surface to blend in with the rest of the solid.

Yeah, it's a bit complicated, but you can make it happen as a work-around.

Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.