Tubular chassis, sweeps and pipes

[nalaalan]

I am creating a tubular spaceframe chassis for a racing car. I have sketched datum points then placed datum curves between these points. These datum curves can then be used to specify beam elements in Mechanica to FEA the chassis.

I have used Insert>Advanced>Pipe to create the tubes joining the datum points. The chassis is shown below:

View attachment 2984

This has worked for the majority of the tubes but some fail because of intersection problems. The pipes do not all intersect each other at the corners (shown below).

View attachment 2985

Is there another way of creating tubes that would blend the corners together correctly. Sweeps will not work as they cannot be used on a single datum curve.

 

[Israr]

As fas as the analysis is concerned it makes no difference...


To have the assembly look real you need EFX 4.0 or 5.0 which has integration with Mechanica as well.


I would suggest use shells instead of beam elements to get realistic behaviour.


Israr
Edited by: Israr

 

[foolmankh]

Hi nalaalan,
In my opinion, let try "boundary blend option".
Good luck.
Best Regards

 

[Mikhail33]

2 Israr
Could you givemore information aboutEFXsoftware - product description, references ets. IsEFX free? If not,do they havedemo version?


Thanks in advance.

 

[Israr]

search on ptc site about EFX. It means Expert Framework Extension, a module developed by Sigmatrix for Pro/E.


The rest you search on the net.


Israr

 

[arroyopr]

I suggest if is the same tube o.d. just bend instead of weld. or make it the same pipe route with the appropiate bend radius.
Edited by: arroyopr

 

[nagabhaskar_m]

if u r doing the analyssis using beams this not at all required , take just curves and do it

 

[nalaalan]

Thanks for the help guys.

I did not make my question very clear. I have done the analysis using beams and the curves are working fine.

The problem I was having was modelling the tubes in Pro/E. I need the tubes to be accurate to place the other car components - such as the engine - into the chassis an define the mounting points. Buying an extension is not an option so I think the best method would be to use arroyopr's suggestion of bending the pipes or especial's suggestion of creating cuts at the pipe intersections. I'll try this and see how it works out.

 

[dross]

I've done the same thing. I created the tubes in the assembly, using a central datum plane to extrude from, then extruding to the surfaces of the other tubes.