CATIA Sheet Metal Lofted Bends

Sheet Metal Designers can now leverage the creation of lofted bends within the CATIA Sheet Metal Design workbench. This feature is available inside an existing hopper feature. The bent lofted bend feature accepts either an open pair of profiles or a closed pair of profiles. The input profiles may lie on a parallel plane or a non-parallel plane.

What is offered & how it serves

“Generate Lofted Bend” option available in the Canonic Hopper, facilitates the user to get more control over the faces of the lofted bend by providing various approximation options. The two profiles (either both open or both closed) lying on different planes is considered as inputs and two distinct points on each profile should be selected as reference opening points. The transition between two profiles is approximated by following four methods:

Number of bends- sets the number of bends between the transition
Segment length- specify the max length of the linear segment
Segment angle- specify the max angle between two adjacent linear segments
Chord tolerance- specify the max distance from arc and linear segment

Following are the important points regarding the Lofted Bend creation:

Lofted bend considers only two input profiles at a time.
The input profiles should be either both open or both closed.
In case of closed profiles, the opening points must be aligned, such that they do not interfere with the approximated bends.
Any sharp corners on the profiles are smoothened according to the selected approximation type.

Example models that can be achieved from this highlight

References

3D Modeling | Multi Discipline Engineering | Sheet Metal Design | Creating Rolled Walls | Creating Hoppers