leaf spring in SW

[WayneCJ7]

I was wondering if there was a way to place a leaf spring into a drawing and be able to have it flex when you move a part that is connected to it, or is this beyond the scope of SW. I am trying to model a standard leaf spring suspension, and have run into this little issue. Any help would be appreciated.

WayneCJ7

 

[APPENG]

Wayne,

This would essentially out of the realm of Solidworks and into the Realm of CosmosWorks, or another FEA analysis package. (assuming of course you need accurate deflections and things like that.

You can however model two different configurations of the spring (one at ride height, and the other at full jounce for instance) by changing the sketch(s) that define the spring. This would of course assume that you know what those deflections are.

Now to animate them, you have me at a loss, you can show those two positions on a drawing view as an alternate position view, but to animate the flexion of the spring you would most assuredly need to have an fea analysis tool

hope that helps
Regards,
Jon
jgbena@yahoo.com

 

[MadMango]

I think the only way to achieve this would be to use several different configs of your spring, to represent the various loading of your assy.

If you are using SW03, you might be able to insert a marco in the FM that would rebuild your spring after you moved a component. "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[APPENG]

thats true, you can do that with mutliple configs in the part, but am not sure if you can insert a macro feature into and assembly, you can however create a macro that you run manually , create assembly configs, and cycle through them referenceing the different part configurations via the componenet properties named configurations.

Regards,
Jon
jgbena@yahoo.com

 

[Theophilus]

Perhaps you could provide flex of your spring by bringing it into an assembly with the part you want to move. If your leaf spring is created with a feature such as a sweep, you could drive your sweep path according to the position of the part in your assembly--essentially by mating your sweep path (end points) to your moving part (or a sketch within your moving part).

In this case, you would not define the spring's radius, but you would probably want to define the springs arc length (by dimensioning the arc length--a handy tool). This will allow a more realistic "flex" of your spring.

Of course, the spring would need to rebuild each time the assembly part (or sketch) is moved, but it would at least flex according to the position of your other part. You would be able to animate this if you wanted to.

The flexing, however, would likely not be an accurate spring flex--but you may not need that, right?


Jeff Mowry
DesignHaus Industrial Design

http://www.designhaus-i-d.com

 

[WayneCJ7]

I really appreciate the advice. I am using SW2001+, so I will give the last method a shot. I am not really interested in getting ultra precise with respect to the spring deflection. I know from real world situations that you should olny have about 3" of uptravel on a leaf spring, and most of that travel is allowed by the shackle rotation on the free end of the spring.

Another question, how do you get SW to dimension the arc length? I can only get it to do the radius and the angle.

Thanks,

Wayne

 

[MalcolmStephens]

In SW 2003, to dimension the true length of an arc, select the arc and the two endpoints of the arc.

Regards

Malcolm Stephens
Have you read "How to Double Your SolidWorks Productivity" yet?

http://www.DoubleSWX.com

 

[DennisD]

I did something like this with a rolling diaphragm. There is no way with the basic version of SWX that I know of to make your spring flex as you move some part. I made my rolling diaphragm change by the use of equations. In your case I would suggest you develop an equation to control the shape of your spring as a function of the part you want to move. You could create a reference dimension to this moving part and then use that dimension in the equation for your leaf spring. Then all you should have to do is move (deflect) the one part and then regerate so the spring is updated. It will then jump to the part.

Normally the spring and the deflecting part would share some constraint. Using this method that constraint is replaced by the equation.

Give this a try and let us know your results.

- - -DennisD