Hi Everyone, I'm needing a little help in designing a tubular frame for a race car (Formula SAE). I did a first design (picture attached), but when I went to analyze it using Mechanica it gave me an error stating that the geometry was invalid. I'm assuming that this is because of the way I designed the frame, which was: 1. Create datum planes, 2. Create points where I wanted intersections, 3. Create sketch between points, 4. Create a swept protrusion along the sketch from part 3. This method leads to having lots of overlap at tube intersections which I think is the main problem when it comes to analyzing my model.
What I am asking of you fine people is: Can I rectify my existing model easily so that I can perform analysis on it? What is a better way to create my next model (faster, less datum planes, etc.)? Any tips in general for modeling tubular frames?
I did a search of the forums before posting this and I came across someone asking a similar question, to which he was referred the EFX (Expert Framework Extension) that might help save time and make the process easier. Is there a way that I can get EFX as a student? If I don't need anything like this, care to explain the best way to model it?
Sorry for being such a newbie, thanks in advance for the help!
Eric
View attachment 2246
What I am asking of you fine people is: Can I rectify my existing model easily so that I can perform analysis on it? What is a better way to create my next model (faster, less datum planes, etc.)? Any tips in general for modeling tubular frames?
I did a search of the forums before posting this and I came across someone asking a similar question, to which he was referred the EFX (Expert Framework Extension) that might help save time and make the process easier. Is there a way that I can get EFX as a student? If I don't need anything like this, care to explain the best way to model it?
Sorry for being such a newbie, thanks in advance for the help!
Eric
View attachment 2246
