SolidWorks & wings

[300S ENIGMA]

	Quote: Originally Posted by zx32tt
	its a '91 in stage 3 tune. I'm the 2nd owner. It's got 62k original miles on it.. You are the only one to ever make the "Z" connection. zx32tt

Wup..!....time to replace the timing belt...hehe

[zx32tt]

nay. All that was done some time ago, along with a new waterpump and a/c compressor. Pity, I really should drive it more.
zx32tt

[300S ENIGMA]

	Quote: Originally Posted by zx32tt
	nay. All that was done some time ago, along with a new waterpump and a/c compressor. Pity, I really should drive it more. zx32tt

Yep...good deal, I was only looking at the mileage indicator you had posted...(60K maint)

They definitely love to be driven.....Do yourself a favor and bypass the HICAS if you haven't already. I hated that thing....and if you ever find yourself wanting to part with yours let me know. I might be interested in it.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming....

[forgues research]

what does all this have to do with solidworks and wings............

[300S ENIGMA]

	Quote: Originally Posted by forgues research
	what does all this have to do with solidworks and wings............

Absolutely nuttin...

Hence the last line in post > "Now back to our regularly scheduled programming"

Sorry for the temporary "Hijacking of the thread"..just two dudes talking about a screen name

[umd pru]

mithrandir,

I use solidworks 2010 on a near daily basis. It has all of the surfacing functions that you used in Pro/E to make the wing in the tutorial you posted. SW used to be VERY lite on the surfacing capabilities it had(pre-2004ish). It has since caught up, by and large, to Pro/E in terms of it's capabilities.

I also agree that a top-down approach for aircraft design is the best in that it makes changes seamless! If you want to change span or airfoil section or anything else at the top level, everything else below it updates correctly if it was modeled and constrained properly.

[malindenmoyer]

I have been modeling a wing using the "top-down" approach described above. I have found that, like the person above me said, that if everything is constrained properly (which takes some thought) that any changes to your original sketches propagate accordingly and is VERY useful when one is designing a plane from scratch, using the model in conjunction with Solidworks Simulation, and redesigning--repeating this process several times.

I have found myself with quite a problem, however, as a result of not thinking all the way through which brings me to my question.

I started my model with several planes with different airfoils sketches on each. The last two airfoils are different from the other three to model a "blended wing". My problem is that now that I need to change the last two airfoils (or if I ever needed to change the root airfoil for that matter), all the constraints that are referencing this sketch will be lost if I delete the spline and replace it with a new one. My question is: Is there a way in Solidworks 2010 to REPLACE a spline, such that all constraints will not be lost when the model is rebuilt? Perhaps it has something to do with renaming the new spline to match the original spline's name, but I haven't figured out (after a lot of searching) a way to do that.

As of now, I will have to delete the old spline, replace it with the new one, and then fix several errors regarding Solidworks not being able to find the original spline which I have several other sketches constrained to. This is what I am trying to avoid.

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Mithrandir]

In Pro/E.. you could redefine the sketck of the airfoil section... and as long as it had the same number od segments, all would be good..

[malindenmoyer]

I don't think that's the case in Solidworks as I have tried to simply replace the sketch and it does not work.

[Shaker]

Any suggestions on learning Solidworks or Pro/E? I've tried several times to wrap my head around 3D modeling for aircraft design and have had less than stellar results.

[forgues research]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Shaker
	Any suggestions on learning Solidworks or Pro/E? I've tried several times to wrap my head around 3D modeling for aircraft design and have had less than stellar results.

Doug,
Having learned Solid works by myself, I assure you , its not too hard , have you tried to follow the tutorial? Although it is very limited, once you have done this, then start making small objects, and such,

Good luck

Roger

[SUNSQUINT]

I agree with Roger....
I use both Pro/E and SolidWorks depending on my client. When I was working for Raytheon, it was all Pro/E. Everyone else is using SolidWorks or UG. You can definitely self learn SolidWorks using the built-in online tutorials in the help menu. You would almost never be able to teach yourself Pro/E even with the best written books. The syntax is still backward from most english speaking people (something similar to Reverse Polish Notation) whereas SolidWorks is much more intuitive. There are many times when I am confronted with something I have never done before and I think "if it were my software, I would do it this way" and it works!

I was able to buy several seats of SolidWorks for my Raytheon dept. and the guys jumped right on-board. The only reason the rest of Raytheon is still using Pro/E is because they are too entrenched with a giant Pro/E data base to change now...

Not trying to start a software flame war, I just think you can learn SolidWorks much quicker and it can do what you want.

[guohua]

good!

[cyberchild]

Hi guys

i have a set of katana plans that i want to modify.

Will it be easier to just redraw the whole model in SW or is there a way to build a model out of the existing plans(ie ribs, fuse sides) i know it is not a complex design.

but have tried acad and rhino 3d and just cant get my head round it?

thanks

[steve400]

	Quote: Originally Posted by cyberchild
	Hi guys i have a set of katana plans that i want to modify. Will it be easier to just redraw the whole model in SW or is there a way to build a model out of the existing plans(ie ribs, fuse sides) i know it is not a complex design. but have tried acad and rhino 3d and just cant get my head round it? thanks

Hi Cyber,
I have been using SW and Inventor for a bit now. I started using the Rhino 3d
more and more. I would say for a project like yours Rhino would be a breeze.
I know Im' gonna catch hell with that statement. But If you did a trace of the root rib and the tip,
you could scan it into rhino as jpeg. Then trace the outline with poly line as curves. Bam outline done. then you could size rib to whatever you wanted then create the wing skin.Also way more flexible when creating your geometry and making changes.Sometimes I still back myself into a corner In SW. I also find it very useful in import and exporting files. I have done a lot of work where Inventor files or SW files are a bear sometimes to read. Rhino can handle a lot of issues when having to deal with that.The export features are powerful as well. For instance you can export the file as an Adobe illustrator file and then go cut graphics with it. Just think in using all three for a while the Rhino is more user friendly. Also way easier to manipulate geometry .. ( moving placing rotating etc....) I posted a simple layout that I did for my 38% Extra. I imported the
graphics as an Adobe Ill file after I sketched the outlines. Just moved them right where I need them and scaled them etc. When I was done I just selected the parts I wanted and exported that to an AI file and cut it out on the vinyl cutter.
Steve