unfold or flatten a curved surface

Hi,

This should (on the face of it, parden the pun) be an easy task. I created a lofted surface over 3 scketched lines. The result is a niceCAD Tutor.zip curved surface. I then thinkened the surface and converted to Sheet metal. At this point I expected to just set the sheet metal defaults to the same 6mm as my thickened surface, and create a flat pattern. But Inventor seems to not find a bend and errors!! So I try Unfold, no joy....Any one got a solution, please?

.ipt attached

Many thanks, Jon

That will not flatten in Inventor or SolidWorks.

Think of taking a sheet of plastic and pulling down over a bowling ball. The material must deform (stretch) in multiple directions (not just one fold) to form the the ball without wrinkles.

Your shape is not such an obvious deformation - but it is deformed loft.

The solution - Imagine your boat is made of planks of plywood (laminated thin sheet oriented in different directions - will not stretch).

The plywood will bend along a single curve but not deform.

Your task is to divide up the desired final shape such that it can be built from cylindrical or conical bent sheets.....

.....or use a manufacturing process, material and CAD software that will allow multi-direction stretching (and unfolding solution)

Thank you Mr Mather, you are right of course and I see your point. Many thanks for the responce

Jon

Hi Jon Arklay,

Actually there are flatten or unfold function for Inventor or Solidworks. The company solid3dtech.com provides such kind of tools to do the unfolding.

John