Joints inside a pipe

[Anonymous]

Hi, I'm trying to draw a series of baffles inside a pipe, and am stuck trying to add the steel angle I want to use as shelf supports.

I'm trying to put a series of steel angle pieces inside a pipe at intervals along the pipe to make supports for baffles at 15cm intervals. I can draw the angle, I can draw the pipe, but I can't come up with a way to join them - there aren't any features inside the pipe, and no geometry to tie it to. I can't see how to add the brackets as components that are joined to the pipe.

Just to make it harder for me, the baffles are about 3/4 of a circle with the opening alternating from side to side as you go up the pipe, so I need the support brackets at an alternating pattern. At 300, 600, 900, etc along the pipe I need brackets at 0, 120 and 240 degrees around the pipe, and at 150, 450, 750, etc along the pipe I need the brackets at 60, 180 & 300 degrees around the pipe. I can do it with a simple piece of bar on edge, because that's just a pattern drawn around the circumference of the pipe end, then repeated up the sides.

Pic added to show the basic idea of the join I need.

[davebYYPCU · Accepted solution]

If I read it correctly, the brackets are fixed, 

can be done with patterns and then Rigid Group.

I made one bracket at each level, circular pattern for them, then selected all and rectangular pattern up the pipe at 30 spacing....

Could be wrong, 

File attached, step up the timeline.

[chrisplyler · Accepted solution]

@davebYYPCU  has the right solution for this thread. There is no need to Joint every shelf into position. Create one or two in the right position to start with, then pattern the rest as desired, then just Rigid Group the whole mess together.

But, for future use, you might like this information:

Joints can be made to sketch points as well as to geometry snap points. If your geometry (a cylinder in this case) doesn't have the snap points you desire, you can add in points you want in a sketch. In the video below, you will see that I put a plane where I wanted the sketch points to be, projected the inside of the pipe, and then used lines to set up midpoints on which you could Joint your shelf brackets. The lines are adjustable in length, which results in the midpoints being closer or further from the pipe's inner surface. Set the line length to equal the length of your angle brackets, and it should make them fit nicely.

OR... although I don't really prefer this method, you COULD snap a joint to the centerpoint of the pipe's diameter (which IS an available snap point) and then use the offset and rotation values to move it over against the pipe's inner surface and further down inside the pipe as well.

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys, I went with a hybrid of both suggestions. I used two planes 150mm apart and added supports on each that were an inversion of each other (like a flipped pancake), then patterned them along the pipe. This is much like Dave's idea except I didn't circular pattern them because I needed one of the three supports to be different from the other two.

The difference from Dave's suggestion was Chris's idea of using the midpoint of chords of the same length as the bracket as a joint anchor - top tip, I'll remember that! Parameters make it simple to change the bracket sizes at a whim, and not spend hours fixing up the mess it makes.

I'm going to try to mark both responses as solutions, but not sure if it will let me.

[chrisplyler]

Good work. I'm glad to have helped in some tiny way. I accept cash, doughnuts and/or booze.

Just out of curiosity - if you're okay with telling - what is the funtion/intent of such a baffled pipe? Some sort of muffler?

[Anonymous]

Muffler is pretty close, it's a combination mixer / dwell system that takes a bottom fed slurry and holds it within the chamber while it's being pumped through to allow time for a reaction to occur.

[chrisplyler]

Gotcha. Cool.