Best way to accomplish a "wrap"

[Morglisn]

Hello, everyone.

I work for a company that manufactures custom-fit removable insulation blankets. We're hoping to use SW to quickly sketch the equipment we want to cover, then produce offset surfaces (i.e., the offset being equal to the insulation thickness) to represent our blankets. Then, we hope to flatten the pieces to form a cutting pattern for the shop. What would be the best way to go about this?

As of now, we're drawing the piece to be insulated, then guesstimating the blanket sizes, and inserting everything into an assembly to see if it fits.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

 

[TateJ]

I've only played with the sheet metal functions...
But I think you could skip modeling the equipment and just model the insulation blanket.
The only caveat I anticipate would be the bend radius.
You'll probably have to tweak that a little to get what you want.
I bet this insulation doesn't have a uniform density and this will definately effect how it bends.
The sheet metal tutorial is a good place to start.

Consume mass quantities...
tatejATusfilter.com​

 

[TheTick]

Are you with "Universal Removable Insulation" in Milwaukee?

I have attempted to "wrap" things in SW, but there is no direct way to do this. Unigraphics has this capability, but it costs much much more.

Last time I needed to wrap a flat pattern onto a cylinder, I used the sheet metal functions. Cut the shape onto an "unbent" flat sheet (a solid with small thickness) and "rebend" the part. Also, SW will require that there be a small, flat, unbent face on this solid. You can cut this off later, if you wish.

SW Sheetmetal does not bend curves and sketches. You need to actually cut the shape to get the final wrapped edges.

Use a "k" factor = 0. This will make the edges on the inside radius of the bend the same as if they were wrapped. "k"=0.5 will put the neutral axis on the midplane, and "k"=1 will put the neutral on the outside.

You may then use the cut sheet metal cylinder sections as templates to cut your final parts.

Sometime in the next few days in my spare time (Ja, right) I'll try to make an example SW file for you.

Gravity is a harsh mistress.

 

[SBaugh]

You can make a cylindrical shapes and have SW unfold it in the SW sheet metal. Check out the help on cylindrical shapes.

You have to make an open contour of the sketch, then use base-flange. That's pretty much it besides adding the data of the definition.

Check it out! Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.3dmca.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[JimSym]

Check out GeometryWorks3D at

http://www.cadcamcomponents.com.

It will do exactly what you need.