Week 8 - Challenge 2 - Switch Bezel Design

Objective :

• To design switch bezel as per automotive OEM Standard
• Create Class B, Class C and tooling axis
• Converting the closed surface into the solid inside part workbench and provide the thickness of 2.5mm
• Performing draft analysis to verify the creation of the Tooling axis and C Class surface

Abstract:

In this project, I design a Switch Bezel using Catia v5. I received input as Class A Surface. I check the direction to eject the tool based on the component design. Later I checked whether all faces that intersected will clear the direction based on the tooling axis. I started working on the Draft Analysis tool to check if our tooling direction clears the path for easy removal of material from the tool. After that, I go to the class B creation using Advance tools from the surface followed by class C creation using the sweep command. After designing class A, B, & C surface, convert close surface into solid inside the part workbench.

Design Methodology:

Procedure for creating Tooling Axis:

1. A Reference Point is created along the surface zero and new Axis system is created

2. The X Direction along the Class A and Y direction along the Class A were used to create the tooling direction

3. Finally the tooling axis is created by bisecting the two lines and it is published. Class A Surface as input using surface operation commands Class B is developed

4. The tooling Axis determines the direction of Class C boundary swept with draft direction

5. When viewing from the tooling direction normal, all the parts that are drafted should be visible so it gives a rough idea to determine product manufacturing in Injection molding.

Procedure for B Surface Creation:

• The next step is to design the B surface for the input which is usually the surface where all the engineering aspects and support creations are done
• The B surface creation is performed using surface operations which is an offset from Class A with dimension proportional to the thickness of the part
• In Switch bezel the B surface is offset to 2.5mm from the input which is the thickness of the part
• The B surface is an extrapolated surface compared to A surface and forms the bottom skin of the part

Procedure for C Surface Creation:

• The next step is to form the C surface which is an intermediate surface between A and B and is used to give the closed surface appearance to the design
• The C surface is swept using the profile as boundary line of Class A which is the guide curve with a sub-type along the draft direction
• The direction of the sweep is the tooling direction formed earlier
• The draft angle for the sweep operation is provided which is 3 Degrees and the surface is swept for length above the thickness of the specified part
• The C surface is refined using smooth curve option to remove the complexity and patches along the swept surface
• Finally the Class A and Class C surfaces are joined together and connexity of surfaces should be less than 0.003mm and the surfaces are merged

Procedure to create closed body:

• The merged surface is then trimmed with B surface to form the closed surface
• The Closed surface is then validated to find the irregularities along the edges and imperfections along the edges were then corrected using operation like extrapolate and surface trim
• This Closed surface is the outer skin of the switch bezel and finally the part is formed by Closed Surface in part design workbench
• The final part is measured to validate the uniform thickness of the part especially along the filleted edges

Procedure for draft analysis:

• The part created has to be changed to material mode in display frame
• Then by enabling compass definition the axis system is pan along the direction of the part and aligned in line with the tooling direction
• Lock Direction is applied that fixes the compass and then the mode dialog box is formed by snapping at any point on the part
• The Color Codes are classified and Draft Angle are applied
• Then the Running point analysis is used to hover around the part to analyze the permissible draft angles and the analysis is saved