Weldment in part studio

bill_daniels

I am creating a fairly complicated weldment.  To use this model in a FEA program, the part must be a single entity and not an assembly.  I expected to accomplish this with Boolean joins in a part studio. 

The weldment requires gussets which are at an angle to the three primary planes and the surfaces where the gussets join are cylinders which can't be used as a base for a sketch. If I could rotate a plane it would be simple to sketch and extrude the gusset or if I could sketch on a cylinder those would solve the issue.  Alternatively, if I could use Boolean operands in an assembly, that would work too.

I can create a model of the gusset in another part studio and then copy and rotate to get the gusset in the right orientation.  I hoped to use the Derive command to bring the gusset into the weldment part studio where it would be "welded" to the main part with a Boolean join.  However, when I try Derived, I get this:

"A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, open the script in the debugger, or let the script continue."

"Script: https://cad.onshape.com/js/jslib.50c38b80.js:3"

Whether I stop the script or not, OnShape locks up requiring the browser tab to be closed to proceed.  I am running FireFox on Ubuntu LInux.

I seem to be blocked - any ideas?

KenWelch

Bill, using SIMSOLID you never need to merge parts. It just solves the original CAD assembly directly.  This is a big benefit for weldments. Makes it much simpler.  Merging parts is required to mesh with traditional FEA but this does come with complexity. It leads to many sharp corners and artificial stress conditions.  Need to be very careful as the results can be misleading.