I'm contemplating creating a put-together and take-apart frame using conduit, or pipe or tube. After specifying member length, I wish to crimp or crush each member a specific length, fillet the member ends so that they are completely round, and then places holes that are concentric to the filleted ends or other locations within the "flat" area of the conduit, or pipe or tube.
How do I model such members to follow the specifications above?
How would I crimp members at locations other than the ends?
I'll be using Autodesk Product Design Suite 2012 Ultimate.
Any tips, suggestions or errata would be most welcomed!
I suspect you are looking to keep the geometry in place and overlap the crimped ends over a crossing pipe, using the hole to fasten them together.
Since Inventor cannot model material deformation, you'll needed to represent this type of geometry by modeling it. You can add it to the frame or remove it from the frame.
Unfortunately, what you are looking for is not part of native Frame Generator. The frame member placement is all based off of a centerline. You can position the member on specific points relative to the entire centerline but could not start in the middle then end as tangent like you'd need.
You could make a skeleton and sweep geometry as needed, and then create and use an iFeature to represent the crimped ends.