I posted this in the sim area a couple of days ago also.
I'm using Solidworks Professional, and as you know have limited sim capbability.
We manufacture plastic fuel tanks for the offroad industry. New EPA regs require most of these vehicles meet air quality standards, ie having carbon canisters, low permeation tanks and hoses, fill level shutoffs, vents, and all.
Part of that standard is that tanks cannot be filled more than X, and after filling to the X level, if the tank is tipped a certain number of degrees the vents cannot be covered by the fuel. If this occurs the fuel level (and volume) needs to be recalculated.
There are numerous other factors that go along but this is just a start.
My question, is there a way simulate this either using Solidworks or Simulation, do I even need to use Simulation, will an upgrade in software be needed.
I have several ideas using combine and or maybe a plane and a known volume and cutting that volume with the plane and recalculating the volume.
One suggestion I got in the sim area is the use mold core feature. I've seen some videos on the web doing this, and even did my own version. What I did was insert a rectangle (fluid) which was bigger than the tank, mated with the front and side planes. Then did the mold core thing. Matiing in just two directions allows movement of the liquid level up and down giving me the volume at that height with a rebuild.
George,
You can do it with the Cavity function in an assembly, as you have already discovered. You can do it in a multibody part if you prefer, using the Copy and Combine features. It seems more straight forward to me to do it in an assembly. If your tank shape is not too tricky, you can also do it in a multibody part by putting a plane where you want your level and extruding up to body with merge results unchecked. (You may have already gotten this suggestion from Kelvin.)
The requirement to tilt the tank and see if the vents are covered will probably require you to iterate a few times. Find the volume of the contents when level. Rotate either the tank or the contents and check the new volume. Move the level to attempt to get the same volume. When the volume is close enough, check to see if the vents are covered.
Jerry Steiger