How to bend around a surface?

[pwildfire]

Hi guys,

I seem to have run into an issue that I can't figure out in Catia V5R21. I am working with a weldment that is made from many complex 2D sheetmetal parts which are bent to match each others' edge contours and then corner welded. Many of the bends involve variable radii. It seems as though I should be able to define a surface using a profile from one part, and then bend the other part around that surface using one of the sheetmetal workbenches, but I am unable to find the right command to accomplish this. Below is a .jpg of what I am trying to do. If anyone can help me out with this it will be much appreciated.

 

[pwildfire]

Also, FWIW, here is what the finished part should look like. I accomplished this by making a very thick pad and then using the split command I sectioned it with the required surface to make a thin contoured part. If I have to I can model the entire part this way, but I don't really think this is an acceptable method as it is time consuming and the geometry is not very precise.

 

[jackk]

The Developed Shapes license (DL1) will fold the flat shape onto the surface. Probably the Generative Sheetmetal license will work also. Both will be much more accurate than the splitting method.

 

[pwildfire]

Thanks for the reply jackk. That did not work for me, as DL1 will only work with a revolute surface, and I cannot create one with the variable radius geometry above. This did point me in the right direction though. It seems the solution is the GSO toolbar, which has a 'wrap surface' option. This does the trick, the only issue I am now running into is that the original surface geometry is stretched to fit the target surface. In other words not only does it take the curvature, but also the overall dimensions of the target surface. I am still looking for a way to limit this. I tried doing it the hard way (making the target surface have the proper curve length and width as the original, but that creates a rotation in the wrapping. Please let me know if anyone has more information about the 'wrap surface' command and how to keep geometry whilst still adding curvature. Otherwise I will post the solution when (if?) I find it.

 

[pwildfire]

^Edit:
The rotation problem had to do with a bad reference surface, and I fixed that. The stretching problem still exists. I am able to get appropriate geometry by making the target surface match the outside geometry of the initial surface, but this seems a lot of work to me. However, this does in fact enable me to create a hopper feature in GSD that has the correct geometry, so I guess problem solved.

 

[KevinDeSmet]

You don't generally do this kind of stuff in CAD, expensive for your needs but maybe Aerospace Sheet Metal does what you want.

 

[Santa123]

Hello,

See this

Best Regards
Santa123