some scan sketches, some draw in Word, some draw in CAD.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

hunter872,

What are you trying to accomplish? If I am doing rough calculations, I will quickly doodle one on the back of an envelope just to keep organised. If I am submitting formal calculations based on the FBD, I use whatever graphics program can be imported into Microsoft Word.

Do you need high quality scale drawings? I have done scale vector diagrams with pencil and paper, but 2D CAD is the Right Way. Everybody can read DXF files.

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JHG

drawoh,

I had in mind presenting a FBD for a complex component with a lot of 3D curvature. Not something that could be easily approximated with a simple shape drawn in PowerPoint.

And this would be within a formal report.

Without making the question too specific, I wanted to see what other people tended to do in such a situation. The vectors wouldn't necessarily need to be to scale.

That's an awesome idea to do it in 2D CAD. Hadn't thought about that.

hunter872,

I have drawn scale vectors on drawings generated in SolidWorks. The scale vectors were parametric with the model. I take it this complex component did not just happen on its own. I never though about integrating an FBD with the 3D model, but that is a possibility.

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JHG

if you've got 3D surfaces then 3D CAD (or "FEA" as we might call it) would be "easy". "These days" you can "easily" make a FB (Free Body, not FaceBook) picture from your results. As a worst case you could "CAD" it ... draw your reaction vectors as lines, present in iso and 3 views.

whatever is clearest at getting the message across.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

Make variable length components and assemble them to the part. I've used stereographic projection to create 3D presentations. Some use two-viewpoint GIF images to toggle between the two images to produce that 3D interpretation.

Use Visio for sketches. Far far better than Powerpoint or Word.

Excel for everything: that way my diagrams and calcs are stored in the one file, and diagrams can be easily modified or repurposed. Excel is not the best sketching tool, but with a bit of practice your stress notes will look like a textbook.
FBD documentation doesn't need to be sophisticated, (the simpler the better), they just need to be clear and correct.

Quote (3DDave)

Some use two-viewpoint GIF images to toggle between the two images to produce that 3D interpretation.

Are you talking about something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiggle_stereoscopy
Do you have any examples of your 3D presentations that you could share? It sounds interesting.

Back when I was designer, engineer, and stress analyst (a lot of hats to wear) my drawings themselves would often have an embedded FBD. AutoCAD model space layer "FBD". Usually frozen and not visible in the paperspace viewports when sending them to the printer. Revealed only when the report needed illustrations.

These days, I won't even bother suggesting such a thing, since modern CAD is soooo much superior now, and you can't hire anyone for love or money that would consider doing all of those things at once.

It is useful to use Matlab interpretation + Tableau dashboard both for reporting in ppt and making presentation in dynamics (if you are, for instance, presenting during a meeting.
This is a form that I am using and customers are used to.
Mainly, they keep data and visualization format, which is easy to make as templates.