Dear All,
I have created an lofted part (Fig 1) and am trying to find the smallest cross sectional area available in that part? Is there any way/ feature available in solidworks that can do it, if not how is it possible to do?
As of now what i did was just eyeballed the area and then drawn a rough sketch (Fig 2) and plotted the area in the drawing.
Thanking you,
Kranthi.
Hi Mahir,
Thank you for your response. I was doing the exact same way that you have said, getting the minimum surface to surface distance and plotting a section across it, but its very tedious job. Getting to know whether I could do it in more easy way, since this minimum area is considered for design modification further down the line.
Thanking you,
Kranthi
Hi Kumar,
If this is a center line loft, then I would create a sketch to define my section plane. Insert a sketch line onto your center line path. Make the sketch line perpendicular to the path. Now control the position of this line with a linear dimension. Create a normal plane with reference to this sketch line. Create a intersection curve on this plane and turn it into a planar surface.
Add a area sensor to this surface. Now move the sketch line that controls the plane in increments along the path and check your sensor.
A quick macro will let you do it quickly. Save the area values & dimension position and you will be able to find your minimum area given.
Elmar
HI Elmar,
I am trying to add a sensor to a surface but not able to do so. could you help? and a macro is an nice idea have to try it.
Thank you for your response.
Thanking you,
Kranthi
you should lookup the help first.
Its not allowing me to add a sensor on the face of the extruded section, but figured another way. and can you be able to help me out with the suggested macro?
Thanking you,
Kranthi.
Cross-sectional area will depend on the orientation of your intersection plane. It's like measuring a pin's diameter with a pair of calipers. If you don't hold the calipers just right, you'll end up with a value larger than the actual diameter. Other than trial and error, I don't know of a good way to define find the proper intersecting plane. It would be easier if you just cared about one dimension (width or heights). Then it would just be a simple measurement.One thing you can do is find the surface-to-surface minimum distance from top to bottom and left to right of the loft. For a loft that doesn't have too many inflection points, the minimum cross-section would probably be located somewhere in between where those two min distance measurements occurred.
Alternatively, if you can parameterize the location of the cross-section plane, you could use goal optimization to get the minimum area.