Creating and Splitting Lofted Bends

BricsCAD allows you to create or recognize lofted sheet metal parts with curvilinear geometry, which can be manufactured using multiple bending.

General Procedure to Create a Sheet Metal Part with a Lofted Bend

  1. Launch the SMLOFT command.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • Click the Create Lofted Bend tool button () on the Sheet Metal toolbar.
    • Click the Create Lofted Bend tool button () on the Sheet Metal ribbon bar.
    • Choose Create Sheet Metal Loft in the Sheet Metal menu.
      You are prompted: Select two cross sections:
  3. Select 2 profile entities.
    You are prompted: Set fillets Radius/Thickness/Single bend/<Flanges with bends>:
  4. Press Enter to accept the default settings.
    A preview of the sheet metal part is created.
    You are prompted: Set fillets Radius/Thickness/Single bend/Flanges with bends or make thicken Both sides/Inside/<Outside>:
  5. Press the CTRL key to choose the position of the sheet metal part thickness with respect to the source profiles: Left, Center or Right.
    If the HKA field in the Status Bar is ON, the Hotkey Assistant widget displays.
  6. Press Enter to create the sheet metal part.
    If FEATURECOLORS is ON, you can distinguish between the 2 flanges () and the lofted bend ().

The properties of the lofted bend display in the Mechanical Browser:

Figure 1. Lofted bend properties
Optionally select the lofted bend feature to edit its properties:
  • Number of subdivisions: the number of flat regions in the unfolded representation of a lofted bend feature (the greater the number, the more bend lines will be added to the unfolded view for the lofted bend).
  • Force triangulation: most of lofted bends can be unfolded using an intelligent algorithm of quad tessellation. However, sometimes it might produce non-optimal results. In such cases set this property to Yes to switch to a more straight-forward algorithm, which creates triangle-like quads.

To Split a Lofted Bend

Lofted bends can split along a line on the lofted surface at an arbitrary point:
  1. Do one of the following:
    • Click the Split tool () on the Sheet Metal ribbon tab.
    • Choose Split the Sheet Metal menu.
    • Type smsplit in the Command line.
      You are prompted: Select flange or lofted bend face:
  2. Select a lofted bend face.
    You are prompted: Select point on lofted bend face:
  3. Select a point on the lofted bend surface.

The lofted bend is split. If the connecting junction is dissolved, you can freely move the separated part.