Increase contact area between swept coil and internal wall

[r.mcneill1]

Hi all,

I am a PhD student working to design an oscillatory baffled reactor, containing an internal helically coiled baffle (referred to as "baffle" from now on). The reactor consists of a pipe with 6mm internal diameter swept along a path, with the baffle travelling axially through the length of the reactor.

To create the baffle, I drew a 4 sided polygon and swept it along the same path as the reactor, adding twist such that the pitch of the baffle was 9mm (1.5x internal diameter).

I am then 3D printing this part for use in my experiments.

Recently I have observed baffle detachment from the internal walls of the reactor, after dismantling the part I measured the thickness of the baffle at the wall was 0.3-0.5mm. I hypothesise this detachment is caused by the liquid flowrate during cleaning, the low contact area between the baffle and the wall, and the structural weaknesses caused by the periodic holes in the baffle.

To remedy this, I would like to increase the thickness of the baffle at the contact area with the wall to 1mm. Can anyone recommend a method to perform this? The sweep command does not allow me to tweak the thickness value or sweep a 3D shape. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have attached the .ipt file for your reference.

If you have any interest in the reactor design aspect of this piece, please shoot me a message and I'll try to get to you quickly.

Thank you very much for your time.

[kacper.suchomski · Accepted solution]

Hi

Method 1 - add rounding

[kacper.suchomski]

Method 2 - edit dimension in sketch (cros-section)

[kacper.suchomski · Accepted solution]

Method 3 - edit geometry of sketch (cros-section)

[r.mcneill1 · Accepted solution]

That's fantastic, thank you!