Week 8 - Challenge 2 - Switch Bezel Design

Aim:

The aim of this project is to develop the product design of the switch bezel with the help of the class A surface following the OEM standards.

PROCEDURE:

Class A:

Class A surface is the term mainly used in automotive design industry. It describes the final production surface data for the aesthetic parts of the car.

Class B:

Class B surface is the secondary surfaces which is not visible normally. These must be smooth and "error-free" as well, but are not held to the standards that class A surfaces are.

Class C:

Class C surfaces are the backside surfaces that can have tool marks, flash and other imperfections without hurting appearance, function, etc..

The steps involved in creation of this project are:

1. Bringing the class A surface of the switch bezel in Catia v5 software

2. Determining the tooling axis for the switch bezel

3. Creation of class B surface 

4. Creation of class C surface

5. Joining all the class A, class B and class C surfaces of the switch bezel

6. Building closed surface after joining all the surfaces

7. Draft analysis on the switch bezel

Main tooling axis:

Creation of Class B surface:

The class B surface is created by extracting each surface of class A surface and then untriming them.After this an offset of 3 mm is given in the downward direction to generate the class B surface.The surfaces are then extrapolated with a certain distance in order to create cross section among the surfaces to perform trim operation.

Surface trim option was used to give the class B surface required shape:

Creation of class C surface for switch bezel:

For the creation of class B surface, first the boundary of the class A surface is extracted using Multiple extract feature.After this sweep option is used to create the sweep along the tooling axis direction.

Class B surface and the class C surface are then joined together to get desired shape. After this operation, class B and class C surface are trimmed together to give the plastic product a mouldable shape.

After ensuring that the surfaces formed are completely closed, the closed surface feature is used to create the solid mould of the switch bezel

Draft Analysis:

When the design is complete, draft analysis is done on the component.After draft analysis is done we can observe that the green colour shows that the drafted walls of the switch bezel are above 2.9 degrees which is a permissible cirteria to manufacture in injection moulding.

CLASS A SURFACE:

FINAL OUTPUT DRAFT ANALYSIS:

FINAL CLOSE SURFACE OUTPUT:

TREE STRUCTURE:

Detailed tree structure for the creation of switch bezel is represented below:

Conclusion: Class A, Class B and Class C surfaces are created following standards of automotive industry using Catia V5 software. Draft analysis was performed on the switch bezel and it was observed that draft was under permissible limit for the manufacturing of the component using injection moulding process.