New to Pro/E Modelling - Creating a Crane Arm

[iamkratos]

Greetings Engineers

I am relatively new to pro/e modelling. Most of the solids I have created till date using pro/e have been simple ones using mostly the extrude or revolve tool.

I am presented with a problem as I try to create a more complex model of a crane arm ( similar to the arm in - http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/M3T2009/Transformers_2009_120.jpg - without the hook) I would really appreciate it if someone who has any ideas on how to model this could guide me in the right direction because I have no idea where to start from.

Thanks!

 

[andesam]

I have no experience with pro/e, but I've been using solidworks a bit. From what I've heard, they have a quite similair UI.

If you Dont know how to approche the problem because of the software i'd advise You to look at some tutorials. From my experience its easyer to model complexe things if you have seen (done) the prosess a few times.

For this model i'd separate the different parts (identify how many different there are), model them individually and assemble them all together.

Please excuse my spelling.
- Andreas

 

[minger]

The crane arm is composed basically just of tube. So, you can use your primitive tool to create cylinders, using a boolean at the endpoints. Another approach would be to create points at the intersections and lines between them. Then sweep over the lines with a circular cross-section to create the truss.

 

[iamkratos]

@Andreas - Thanks for your reply.
I've been spending quite a bit of time on the tutorials, I'm afraid they're not of much help. I took your advice though and tried to assemble the parts separately but I'm not able to constrain the members completely. By the looks of it, the assembly is fine but I'm afraid i will face problems when I use the model for analysis in ANSYS. @minger - Thanks for the reply, but what do you mean by your first suggestion - about the arm consisting basically just of tube??

 

[minger]

Oh God, don't use a solid model for an ANSYS computation. As I mentioned, your main boom is not much more of a truss. Use BEAM elements in ANSYS. At each joint, create a keypoint, and then lines between them. Create the proper cross-sections via SECTYPE, and SECDATA. Then simply LMESH the lines to create it. View it with /ESHAPE,1 to make sure everything looks fine.

 

[greydient]

I have been using ProE for over 10 years, and have a great deal of experience importing models into ANSYS (both classic and workbench).

I'm curious what your issue is...what specifically is the problem?

-Start by creating each section as an individual part
-For someone new to ProEngineer, it is very expedient to create an Extrusion as the first feature, giving the over-all envelope. All additional features can be extrustions that remove material to get you close to the shape you need
-For the hook, start by creating a Sketch showing the shape, then create a swept protrusion
-For the treads, create one instance of any of the features, then pattern