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Creating Solid Wing : Help Needed!

Arbiter

New member
Hey Folks!

I am almost done with my first conceptual model of my plane! I am so excited! I figured out how to generate wings with the correct sweep, twist, and airfoils and import the curves in an IBL file (WF 4.0). I used the boundary blend tool with much success to generate the wing surfaces using curves of 1 direction (The airfoil sections). What I can't figure out how to do is use the airfoil sections at the root and tip to cap off the blend and make a solid out of each wing. How should I accomplish this? Each airfoil section is 1 curve starting at the trailing edge and ending at the trailing edge... Below shows the holes I am trying to fill. Can anyone help me? Thanks!

-Chris Z.
 
No one has an idea about how to spread a surface between a closed curve like an airfoil and generate a solid from it?
smiley19.gif


-Chris
 
can you upload the part? (wing) . you probably could make a fill surf (if its planar) otherwise another BB could do it, och an extrude... and so on. so, if possible, please upload the part!


//Tobias
 
Arbiter,


The best way to adress you, is to use VSS tru graphs that control the "chord", "twist" and make it solid once.


I'll send you an example file.


Regards


Pablo
 
Hey Pablo,
That seems like it could work, but I am not familiar on how to use the equations you are referring to (TWIST and CHORD). Also, I already have a tool that generates the wing and accepts any airfoil coordinate file I want to give it and gives me the location of each point making up that airfoil to 27 decimal places if I need it. I would prefer to stick with making the wing surface through boundary blending and then capping the ends off and making it a solid if this route is possible. I would be interested to hear more about your method though for future projects. Thank you for your time, and I am still looking for suggestions on how to create solids for my wings. Thanks!

-Chris
 
I have a little experience with aircraft modeling. The technique we use to create the wing is the following:
1) sketch wing sections

2) boundary blend across sections

3) fill sketches

4) merge sketch with boundary blend (1 at a time)

5) solidify

this should give you a solid wing. to cap off the ends you can fill the final sketch. if you want to round off the ends youll need to do something else.

Let me know if it works. good luck

Eric
 
Eric,
I am not at my Pro/E Computer right now, But awesome looking project. It brings me back to the tanker design we did with a Blended Wing Body for my senior project! I will try the fill stuff you and Tobias suggested. I think I did try that late last night, but I remember not seeing my datum curve highlight like I could select it. Any suggestions? My wing sections come from a file I generate from Excel that I make datum curves from. I use an IBL file using Arclength Closed callouts in the header. I am relatively certain that my datum curves are closed curves, but I don't know if the closed callout guarantees the two endpoints of the spline connect or not. If not, then they should still be very very close since I used decimal precision in my calculations. Any suggestions on how to use datum curves and the edit>fill feature? Thanks!

-Chris
 
Hey Arbiter, I cant read educational version files, if you can post it as IGES for your curve network and STEP for your surfaces, I'm sure we can get you going in the right direction.


Paddy
 
Paddy,
I will try to post these files in IGES and STEP format tonight when I get home. Thank you for the help!

-Chris
 
Chris,

Funny you should mention senior project...the model in the image above is part of a blended wing body design which i will most likely be using for my senior project.

Alright so i opened your file and i think the fact that your using curve through points is going to be problematic. The wing was created from Curve from file id ###, which looks like it contains all the curves used in the wing. If i were you, i would import 1 curve at a time, and sketch over it--The fill command only accepts sketches. you could easily sketch over the curve by using the "use edge" tool. Then continue solidifying the wing with the steps above.

You dont have to bring them in 1 at a time--you could just sketch over the existing curves (youll need to add datum planes). You will need to redo the boundary blend and use the sketches--not the curves.

Im sure this is not the only way to go about solidifying your wing. Anyone else have any ideas?

Eric




Edited by: CPAERO
 
Eric,
Cool about your senior project! I am going to continue to look at using a single imported IBL file if possible since I will be using sections every 5% of semi-span when I get serious about the true wing layout. This would get cumbersome. I will take a look at the edge tool as well and see if I can't extract a sketched curve to fill off that last airfoil. Thanks for the input and good luck on your project! Let me know if you figure anything else out! Thanks!

-Chris
 
I managed to get the quilts to become a solid using a sketch plane to extract the edge airfoils into a sketch... Maybe I am missing something, but I cannot hide a solidify either, which is frustrating. Any insight into why I can hide other Edit features but not a solidify?

Can someone let me know if this game plan makes any sense in Pro/E:

1. Generate surfaces using datum curves and boundary blends. This "Master Surface" of the aircraft exterior will form the basis from which every other part is derived.

2. Use the "Master Surface" part file to generate the skin of the vehicle by using off-sets of the surface etc.. I would import or some-how reference this master geometry for any applicable part I was creating...

Is there a way to do what I described above in smarter way than what I am thinking? I am going to be desinging and fabricating this airplane on my own someday down the road, and I have a huge amount of modeling/assembly making/drawing to do. Any tips up front would be more than welcome! Thank you very much for all of your help and suggestions! Keep em coming! Thanks!

-Chris Z.
 
Hey Folks,
Here is the model in Step and IGES:

2009-10-09_072721_x0002_endeavour_conceptual_mode.zip

Behold it's awesome noobness ;). Any suggestions on how to do this stuff more easily the better. Does anyone know how precise Pro/E can get with its datum curves? I have my airfoils set to 27 decimals (Not going to use all of them unless I can) but I don't know where to set that in Pro/E. Thanks!

-Chris
 
Using a graph (TRAJPAR) with a variable section sweep is an excellent way to end a wing.... I did this with the Predator B UAV wing tip. I was able to control the sweep, twist, planform and upsweep via graphs and iterate very quickly changing each of these to suit the aero guys.


Also... I have found it troublesome to have the airfoils go to an absolut point at the trailing edge.... better to have something like a .0625 to .125 inch trailing edge.


The pointed trailing edge is not robust it seems for things like offsets etc...
 
Mithrandir,
Thank you for the post! It looks like I may want to go take a look at this graph stuff. I don't imagine you'd be willing to share an example of what you are talking about? Did you have multiple airfoil sections? Some designs have different airfoil shapes at the beginning, middle and end of the wing. If so, how did you handle it? Thanks for the input!

-Chris
 

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