My company manufactures material handling equipment (lifts which personal
can't ride). They cut, machine and weld up a bunch of structural steel,
paint it and assemble purchased components to create product. See
formatting link
for further information. There has been a push to implementSolidwork's weldments package because the cut lists interface well with
DBWorks. After playing with the add-on for about 2 hours, I can't get it to
do what or how our shop fabricates weldments. I've known about a few
shortcoming, but I've found a few more since my little experiment. I could
be missing something since I've only have the 2004 training class on
weldments. Here are a few of my findings, please correct me if I'm
incorrect.
1. No gap can be created between joining pieces for shop fit up.
Structural steel is hot rolled from the mill and the tolerances on the OA
heights and flanges can be quite generous (5/32" height wise and ¼" on the
widths). I typically cut back 1/16" on all steel butting against a flange
and let the fabricator fill the joint with weld (obtaining better
penetration also).
2. Many of the weldments are orientated to the top side, to support
the load; it must be flush with a plate on top for ease of loading with
pallet jacks and fork trucks. Since we optimize materials for strength vs.
weight, many times the internal members are smaller than the external
structural members. I cannot shift the internal profiles to match the top
side without multiple sketches on multiple planes or multiple profiles
offset at different heights.
3. Unlike structural steel parts created with sketches and features, I
can't suppress filleted edges in weldment profiles. I typical create
configuration with all fillets suppressed to speed up the assembled steel
parts or for quicker FEA analysis.
4. Internal member's sizes and lengths are dependent on other internal
and external member's sizes. So with weldments, I require multiple sketches
to have these members have relationships to other members. These extra
sketches must reside below the referenced members in the feature tree.
5. We don't cope steel as complex as Solidworks extends faces to
another member, we typically just notch a rectangular cutout in the corner
to match the flange and fillet in channels and beams. No custom copes in
weldments.
6. Parts can't have display states, only assemblies. multi-bodied
parts can hide bodies, but not with weldments. How can I show just one of
the structural parts which require machining? I was able to detail out the
part, but only after hiding the edges of all the other parts I didn't want
shown. With display states, I can create a separate state for each part
which requires machining. With multi-bodied parts, I can create separate
configurations for each part which requires machining. All weldments
require some type of machining or modification for stuff can attach to it or
it can attach to other stuff.
There might be other issues, but I've only played for a short time. Please
feel free to comment or ask questions. I hope to resolve these issues
before we jump on board without a paddle.
Keith Streich
Engineering Department
Pflow Industries, Inc.