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Constraining a wheel in a curved track

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Message 1 of 4
alex
2027 Views, 3 Replies

Constraining a wheel in a curved track

I'm assembling a garage door, and I need it to open and close like a real garage door. However, I cannot get the wheels to follow both the straight and curved sections of track at the same time. I can make the wheel follow the straight section, but I cannot get it to follow the curved part when it gets to that part of the track. I've tried a transitional constraint to no avail: it follows the straight section just fine, but then it refuses to go into the curve when I drag it that way. 

 

Wheel on Track 1.png

The profile of the track looks like this. The curved section is a 90-degree semi-circle with a slightly larger radius than the wheel, as is the case with real garage doors, although I suppose I could make it the same radius as the wheel if that would help. 

Profile
I've attached a section of track and the wheel as .ipt files created in Inventor 2015.

3 REPLIES 3
Message 2 of 4
JDMather
in reply to: alex

This problem (or variations of this problem) have come up here quite frequently in the last few weeks.

 

Download the attached zip file.

Right click on the file and Extract All.

Open the assembly in the folder.

 

Drag slowly (don't want to overwhelm the motion calculations) the roller allong the dummy track.  (actually, on my machine I can drag pretty fast without breaking the solution)

Examine the dummy track with Shaded Edges Visibility style.  Note that there are no seams with multiple faces.  This is key to a robust solution.

 

You can right click on your Test Profile track and make it visible.

 

There is actually a somewhat easier solution, but I thought this would be easiest for you to understand what I did.

 

If I were doing the design - I would be going to Environments>Dynamic Simulation and my dummy track would be a flat curve rather than an arced curve. I would also have a second dummy file cylinder to drive at constant velocity along the track.

This is covered in the Wasim Younis book. 

 

Revision 1 demonstrates that you might not technically need the dummy file.


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Message 3 of 4
blair
in reply to: JDMather

I guess you could create a sketch on the inside of the track, create a line for the full length of the track that would represent the center axis the roller would travel and then extrude this line to a surface and then constrain all the roller shafts to this surface for them to follow.

 

As JD mentioned, moving the door to quickly may cause Inventor not to be able to keep up with the calculations and it may loose the track path.


Inventor 2020, In-Cad, Simulation Mechanical

Just insert the picture rather than attaching it as a file
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Message 4 of 4
alex
in reply to: JDMather

Oh wow, that's excellent! I haven't worked with patches before, but I guess now is the time. I will continue to tinker with this, but it absolutely works. Thank you!

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