Beam Extraction

- February 5, 2020 at 4:31 pm
  
  RZIlla
  Subscriber
  
  Hi all
  Just a bit of background info. I created a tubular frame in SolidWorks where I set the tube diameters and thicknesses as input parameters. So when I imported this into design modeler, I was able to parameter-ize these tube diameter and thicknesses which I used later in an optimisation study.
  However, three tubes were used as solids in mechanical. I want to simplify the model and use the tubes as beams in mechanical instead of solid geometry. Because this reduces my mesh size and computational time. However I am not sure how to get these tubes as beams. Is there a way to extract beams in DM? I know Space Claim has a feature that can extract the tubes as beams and it works great, however, I cannot figure out how to parameter-ize it in Space claim. I can only extract the tubes in spaceclaim, but cannot figure out how to import those parameters that I decided in SolidWorks into SC. It's very easy to input these input parameters into DM, but I can't extract beams in DM (or is there a way to do so?). Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks again
- February 5, 2020 at 9:55 pm
  
  peteroznewman
  Subscriber
  
  Are these simple circular tube cross-sections, so the parameters are ID and OD or one of those and wall thickness?
  
  DM doesn't have a cool beam extract feature so you could create curves in SolidWorks and bring them over using IGES or create the lines in DM, which is tedious.
  
  Can you use SC to extract the line bodies then open the geometry in DM to assign parameterized cross-sections?
- February 6, 2020 at 4:32 am
  
  RZIlla
  Subscriber
  
  1. Yes, these are simple circular tubes. In SolidWorks, I assigned their Outer Dia as a parameter and their thickness as the second parameter.
  2. Your suggestion of extracting the beams in SpaceClaim and then importing it into DM could work however, when these beams are then exported into DM (from SpaceClaim), how can I select these line bodies to be parameterized? I have not been able to parameter-ize any CAD geometry that wasn't imported directly from SolidWorks. For example, if I import an IGES file into DM directly, I cannot parameter-ize it.
  3. Is there a way to parameter-ize the part in SpaceClaim? When I extract the beams in SpaceClaim, I get the beams and their beam profiles, stated as 'Extracted Beam Profiles'. I however cannot edit these extracted beam profiles. Is there a way to do so?
  Thanks again.
- February 6, 2020 at 11:45 am
  
  peteroznewman
  Subscriber
  
  In SpaceClaim, I expanded the Beam Profiles folder to get to the Extracted Profiles in the Structure.
  
  Right Click on one of the Extracted Profiles and select Edit Beam Profile. Then a section of the solid shows up. It is possible to click on the circular edge and create a Parameter by clicking on the P.
  
  I renamed Group 1 and Group 2.
- February 9, 2020 at 11:04 am
  
  peteroznewman
  Subscriber
  
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