Associative Tray and Tooling Design

1
Associative Tray and Tooling Design

• Using WAVE Geometry Linker and Patch Body Feature
• Patrick Barrett
• Sherpa Design, Inc.

2
Who Am I?

• Patrick Barrett
• Sherpa Design, Inc
• CAD Junkie
• My Background
• Castings, tooling/fixtures, plastics, electronics
• Low to High-end design, design automation
• UG, Pro/E, SolidWorks CAD packages

3
Our Challenge

• Design formed-fiber trays for apple packing
• Variable pocket and edge radii
• Variable pocket counts
• Design and build tooling to produce
• 7 different tools per tray
• Different materials for each tool
• Shrink factors, assortment of offsets and
  clearances
• Make it associative re-use it again

4
The Process and Our Approach

• Tray designed, prototyped
• Fit, support of fruit
• Designed at finished tray size
• Tooling designed
• Shrink factors during drying applied
• Separate/unrelated part files? (old way)
• Lets do this smarter
• Changes to tray changes to tooling
• Tray model drives tooling models

5
UG Tools We Used

• Assemblies
• Still got individual part files
• Clone Assemblies for future tray designs
• WAVE Geometry Linker
• Linked Region inside or outside surface of tray
• Could do what we wanted in tooling files and it
  would update
• Patch Body
• Tray surface to die base
• Independent changes

6
Assemblies

• Work in individual part files yet maintain
  associativity between components
• Lets us use the Parts List in B.O.M
• Part attributes can be changed at component level
• Need to have assemblies to use WAVE tools
• Can assemble Empty Parts to begin modeling
• Reference Set management

7
WAVE Geometry Linker

• Note edit ug_english.def file to allow interpart
  expressions if its your first time
• Similar to Extract feature
• Lots of options depending on your need
• Faces, curves, sketches, bodies, etc.
• Toggle between Work Part and Displayed Part to
  link assembly geometry

8
Patch Body Feature

• Booleans a Sheet Body and a Solid (or sheet)
• Trim/Unite/Sew functionality
• Good when surface normals cause trim problems
• Need overlapping edges or loose tolerance
• Very handy with complex surfaces

1) Select Solid Body to Patch To
2) Sheet Body to Patch With
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Simple Cup and Pin Demo

• Assemblies, WAVE Geometry Linker, Patch Body

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How We Applied This

• Modeled tray
• Assembled in tooling file
• Linked regions of tray we needed
• Inside or back face depending on tool being
  designed
• Traverse Interior Edges selected
• Applied shrink
• Patched tray region with tooling bases
• Offset faces, added clearance as required

11
Tray and Female Wire Die Demo

• Modify Tray Design and Changes Are Passed to Wire
  Die Tool

12
Results

• All tooling files are driven by the same tray
  model
• Changes are made once, and updated in all related
  parts
• Linked region grabs everything inside boundary
• What used to take 2-3 weeks now takes a couple
  days
• Next step tray design can still be improved upon

13
Questions

• Patrick Barrett
• pbarrett_at_sherpa-design.com
• 503-771-3570
• www.sherpa-design.com