Workflow tips with lots of beams

Hi All!

Looking for tips on how to work as efficiently as possible in the following scenario:

I am about to start a new aluminium hull body design which will have *LOTS* of
T-shaped beams running along the inside of the hull plates. The hull shape is
quite "organically" rounded in most places with a few sharp corners.

It's quite easy to create all the frames and stringers using booleans with the
hull solid. But then when it comes to putting the T-bars on, there are endless
amounts of "Create Plane + Sketch, Insert Sketch Block, Sweep"-type operations.

This is very repetitive and time consuming work that the computer would be much
better at than me if I could just figure how to automate it...

Any ideas?
/C

 

Start with a macro.

1. Create offset plane (I am assuming your stringers are on parallel
planes
2. Create intersection curve with hull
3. Pick end of intersection curve
4. Start sketch on endpoint and curve
5. Sketch "T"
6. Close sketch
7. Sweep sketch of T on sketch containing intersection curve.

There is a lot more to do than this, but it should get you started.

 

Well, yeah, I know I could sit down and write a whole bunch of macro code that
does this. It would take longer, but be less boring ;-)

However, I cannot believe I am the first in history with this kind of design, so I
was hoping for tips on how to use the available tools, or if there was an existing
macros or 3rd party stuff that would be useful.

Cheers /C

 

Add the T-profile to your available Weldment profiles. You'll still
have to draw the line to "sweep" the profile along, but at least you
won't have to continually re-draw the sketch.

or

I don't use them, but maybe a Library Feature would work as well?

Ken

 

Looks like I was a little quick to hit the "Post" button. Instead of
saying that you'd aviod having to "continually re-draw the sketch",
what I should have said was that by designing with the Weldment tools
you'd avoid the "Create Plane + Sketch, Insert Sketch Block, Sweep"
methodology. So as a Weldment profile you'd only have to have to draw a
line that each profile would be "swept" along (which could all be in
one, probably 3D, sketch if you really wanted to do it that way), and
then insert the T-shapes as weldment bodies (in one, but more likely
multiple Structural Members).

All tho now that I think about it, I don't know if Weldment profiles
can be swept along non-linear lines? I'll have to try that one out on
Monday.

Ken

 

You almost got me all excited there.... I hade not thought about using
weldments for a thing like this.

But alas, no love. "Selected segment is invalid, only linear and arc
segments can be selected." Too bad, it would have been a beautiful trick!

/C

 

Perhaps not. Can you make a derived sketch from the weldment profile?
Or from a library sketch?

 

Well maybe not. But the macro way of doing things is giving me trouble too.
I'd like the beam cross sections to be Sketch Blocks, so I can tweak dimensions in
common. But the sketch block functionality apparently has no (or broken?) API support.

TOP skrev:

 

Did you consider either a library sketch or a macro that draws the
profile with linked dimensions?

Sketch blocks are nice but perhaps don't contain all the functionality
that you would hope for. A lot of new features in SW don't have
comprehensive compatibility with SW in areas like API support. I've
kind of learned that with SW if it isn't there by the so called popular
vote that it doesn't pay to keep beating head against wall. Nihil est
ab omni parte beatum.