Imagine the following part:
A steel tube, 1.00 square x 72 inches long. A series of five holes drilled all the way through on the front face, and another series of three holes drilled through on the top face. Then, the tube is formed to a radius of 100 inches (axis top to bottom... front & back faces are curved).
I'd like to model this in a way that is easy to change as size/radius/hole count changes. Here's what's important:
Tube true length (the true arc length of the tubing after it's formed to a curve) Radius Number of holes (both on the radiused face and on the top (flat) face)
I'm fine with creating the tube and setting up variables for arc length & radius, but the holes give me a problem. I'm not sure of the best way to put those on--the ones on the radiused face.
An option that I like would be to model the tube straight (before bending), then bend the model on the radius. I'm not sure how to do that... I tried with sheetmetal tools, but it didn't work. If I did it that way, I could show a drawing view that's the unbent tube w/ all dimensions, then a secondary view of the curved tube.
So, anybody here have advice on a good way to do this? Anybody want to model something quickly? I appreciate your help/advice. Thanks...
Brian