How to do this in Sheetmetal?

[CADGemini]

Hello All,

I have come to a roadblock using Solidworks sheetmetal. Does anyone know how to make the image below unfold to a flat pattern? I've been to sheetmetaldesign.com and found a couple tutorials that were helpful but are not applicable to this shape. The image to the right shows a bottom view of the part. The sheet thickness is .020". Any help would be appreciated.

Best Regards,
Jon

Challenges are what makes life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Solidworks 2005 SP3.0

 

[MadMango]

You can't, not in SW. This shape requires that the material be physically "deformed", meaning stretched, which is something that SolidWorks has never been able to do.

[green]"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."[/green]
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[Timelord]

jksolid,

You will never be able to do that nozzle in sheetmetal. Compound curved surfaces cannot be flattened. You could roll the base cylinder in sheetmetal and maybe shape or deform the nozzle shape, but to my knowledge once you do that it won't flatten.

Timelord

 

[smcadman]

This could be spun, but you will not be able to flatten it. If it was to be spun, it would be a flat round disk anyway.

Flores

 

[Arlin]

This cannot be done in SWX or in any other typical sheetmetal software.

What you are trying to do is analsgous to flattening an orange peel...it cannot be done without tearing and/or stretching.

See this for more information:

http://www.eng-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=807

 

[CADGemini]

That is what I thought.

Thanks for everyone backing me up on this one. I knew that this could not be done in a sheetmetal formation, but just wanted to check with others in this forum to see if there was something I was missing.



Best Regards,
Jon

Challenges are what makes life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Solidworks 2005 SP3.0