Bend part in assembly

kristoffer_falk

Good evening

Is it possible to bend/flex a part in an assembly?

For example in the screenshot below, where I would like to make the green parts bend a little to connect with the red part all the way. Is this possible?

I know, I can just design the green part with the bends, but I an working with 1 mm polystyrene sheets, which will be CNC-milled, so all parts need to be flat. The part in real life is therefore flexible, but I would like to incoorporate this into my design.

sam_holland

Try modeling it as a sheet metal part. then you can add the bend but still retain the flattened version?

BenTaylor

That isn't possible to do within the assembly, but there are a couple ways you could achieve this.

First (assuming the part has uniform thickness), you could model it using the sheet metal tools. The flat pattern is saved and accessible (and can be used for drawings), but the modeled part would show the bends. This might not work depending on the complexity of the bends it needs to match.

The second way would use part configurations. If you can figure out how to model it in both the flat and bent states while maintaining robustness, you can make it a configured part. You could change the instances in the assembly to the "Bent" configuration, while the "Flat" configuration still captures how it's manufactured and can be used for drawings. This can make part and release management a little bit tricky, but would work to get the visualization you are looking for. 

dirk_van_der_vaart

Something like this.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/130fdff15209b960838c8b14/w/afb74ece3d301268bfdb9a96/e/3440ee4fa933e142ea9da6f4

sam_holland

Try modeling it as a sheet metal part. then you can add the bend but still retain the flattened version?

BenTaylor

That isn't possible to do within the assembly, but there are a couple ways you could achieve this.

First (assuming the part has uniform thickness), you could model it using the sheet metal tools. The flat pattern is saved and accessible (and can be used for drawings), but the modeled part would show the bends. This might not work depending on the complexity of the bends it needs to match.

The second way would use part configurations. If you can figure out how to model it in both the flat and bent states while maintaining robustness, you can make it a configured part. You could change the instances in the assembly to the "Bent" configuration, while the "Flat" configuration still captures how it's manufactured and can be used for drawings. This can make part and release management a little bit tricky, but would work to get the visualization you are looking for. 

dirk_van_der_vaart

Something like this.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/130fdff15209b960838c8b14/w/afb74ece3d301268bfdb9a96/e/3440ee4fa933e142ea9da6f4