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Surface Area of the Inside of a Part

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sksharp

Mechanical
Jun 17, 2010
1
I have a complex part and I need to get the surface area of the inside of the part. I know I can select a face in measurement and see the area of the face but it's a complex part.

I used offset surface set at zero distance to create a surface model but still don't have a good way of getting the area.

I thickened the surface to .001 so now I have the surface area of the whole thing. Seems like if I divided that number by 2 I would have what I need.

Does anybody know a better way to do this? Seems like SW would be able to do it without all the thrashing around.

Steve.
 
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Create a part (or a body) that is larger than your internal volume and do a Combine (Subtract). This will leave you with a body that should have the same surface area as your internal volume. Then Tools/Mass Properties should get it figured out.

Dan

Dan's Blog
 
Using the power select tool gives you alot of options that may help you.
dividing the total surface area by 2 is a reasonable approximation for a surface body but has a margin of error depending on the feature sizes vs the thickness you added think of a sphere if you add .001 to 1"
4*pi*1.001^2= 12.591 outer shell
4*pi*1^2=12.566 inner shell

thats a .0125 margin of error if you just totaled and divide by 2.

don't know how exact you are looking to be.
 
If you select the zero offset surface(s) (or the faces used to create it/them) and activate the Measure tool, does it not give the area? Note; this does not work on a Knit surface.
 
Hi, Steve:

Select any number of surfaces you want to measure, and press "M" (measure) key to get the area.

Good luck!

Alex

 
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