Learning Forum

[Jacob Ellis]

Is there an easy way to make a spherical shell from a sphere primitive (3D volume)? The Detach option is greyed out so I can extract the surface like I could, say, a cube.

 

[peteroznewman]

In SpaceClaim, you would select the face and type Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V to copy the face and paste a surface. Then you could delete the solid.

[Jacob Ellis]

Hi Peter. Not for a closed surface like a sphere. It simply pastes another 3D body even if you only have 1 Face selected. I tried in both Spaceclaim and Discovery. 

[peteroznewman]

I see you are correct.  A workaround is to create a plane to split the sphere into two hemispheres, then Detach All will work and you will end up with 2 domes and two circular flats.  Delete the circular flats then use the Share button on the Workbench tab. Mechanical will mesh the spherical surface without an issue.

[Jacob Ellis]

True. Thanks for the workaround. Share Topology would work. I guess there is a deep reason in the Geometry algorithms (that I don't understand) why closed surfaces can't exist without automatically converting to a 3D Solid. Otherwise, it's a bit annoying that you need to bring in a multi-body part to the solver for this to work. But tolerable. Thanks and have a great weekend.