Sheet Metal - Enable Aviation Specific Features

[punisher]

I am very interested in aviation type sheet metal features and workflows using the sheet metal environment.

Inventor's intuitiveness and feature UI is really unparalleled, and I do appreciate these.

That said, we need corner treatments to behave as specified in the interface, and some additional features added.

The initial items that come to mind are bend / corner treatments, and joggles.

Joggles allow us to lap an L-shaped rib (and other shapes) from atop a single sheet and jump above another layer of sheet metal, within a continous part.

This is physically pressed in the shop or on a manufacturing press.  We need to be able to add these features. If not for an L-shape, then at least for a flat sheet. We can do it with a couple processes, but it should be added as a single, intuitive sheet metal feature; "pick base feature face -> pick feature to jog to -> DONE.

Corner treatments are the worst folks. If a proposed bend (flange, etc.) lies against an existing bend somewhere (including in an unfolded feature), Inventor ignores treatments and reverts to a tear type instance. In aviation we drill a hole at the bend treatment corner, and cut the excess material out before sanding smooth. What results is a flat pattern, containing a 90° L-shape cutout with a TANGENT corner round at the bend. We DO NOT punch into the land areas of the bent sheet metal frame members with any cutouts.

The work around is to avoid treatments in Inventor, and add corner rounds to unfolded feautres. This is an acceptable (but sucking) workaround, HOWEVER the Flat-Pattern FAILS if any corner rounds are applied to an UNFOLDED feature.

These are two examples of what we need some help with, and areas that enable other vendors keep their customers subscription in their pocket.

Community thoughts? Workarounds?

[Gene.R]

YES!

I have been requesting some aviation sheet metal tools since 2005, I was even given a presentation of some curved flange functionality that was supposed to end up in the 2008 release but didn't make  it. We did get some functionality that helped immensely for sheet metal styles, punches, and flat pattern editing but they fell short on the aviation tools.

• Curved Flanges that will unfold ( for wing ribs and bulkheads)
• Joggle tool, not just for sheet metal but for creating an offset on extruded aluminum also.
• Rivet dimples, for flush riveting sheet metaI, would like to see this in the existing hole command for rivets, screws and bolts.
• holes normal to a curved surface that can be constrained to, and also come out as circles in the flat patterns.
• pattern holes that remain normal along a curved surface.
• ignore or fill countersinks in flat pattern models
• flat pattern tool to repair and replace deformed eliptical holes as true holes.
• flat fattern tool to repair edges that are not perpedicular to the face.
• Create a centroid point at the center of selected sketch geometry.

Gene.R

[punisher]

Wonderful additions. YES!! All of these.

Thanks for reminding me about dimples.

I so agree with the holes. It is nice to be able to run the hole pattern our
in an unfolded rib, and then refold the pattern with it, but the stretched
holes are a real problem.



What would be even nicer than holes that stay circular? Let the hole pattern
remain associative so that the refolded pattern can be picked up in another
body or part.

The intent of the rivet pattern is to be picked up in another body, so help
us automate this.



Another thing is developing the staggered rivet pattern. It would be nice to
add a stagger factor to the patterning tools. We often stagger rivet
patterns, and it is a arduous task to develop multiple patterns that are
intended to be one, multi-row array.



Cheers,

john

[Anonymous]

Yes, all of the above.

@punisher In regards to; "The intent of the rivet pattern is to be picked up in another body, so help
us automate this."

I think there should be a way to copy hole feature from part to part associatively.

Instead of 1. Edit Part 2. Create Sketch 3. Project Geometry 4. (The worst one) Add center mark for 50 to 100 rivet holes 5. Create Hole Feature 6. Finish Edit.

We could have something like this 1. Copy Hole feature 2. Select new part in assembly 3. Apply. And it would automatically put the hole feature in the next part based on its location with the original part.

Matt

[inv.ideareview]

Thanks for sharing your Idea. We use this forum to guide product development and help users in the best way we can based on voting. We occasionally merge Ideas or archive old ones to keep the forum working properly - it ensures there is room for people to review new Ideas and that the most relevant and meaningful ones can gain votes. We’re archiving this Idea because it's been on the board for well over a year and hasn't received many votes from the community. If you want to raise it again and try to gain more support, you're welcome to do so. We’ve found that pictures and mock-ups can help get concepts across and win more votes from other users. If you have questions or see a connection between this Idea and others, let us know. - Inventor product team (Inv.idea review)