Cadalyst - August 2008 - (Page 14)

techtrends By Kenneth Wong Rotor Bug Strikes Again Sportcopter builds up, tears down autogiro designs in SolidWorks. J im Vanek was bitten by the rotor bug when he was a kid. He watched his dad, Chuck Vanek, build rotor-powered aircrafts, commonly referred to as gyroplanes. Their workshop often was littered with foam, wood, and sawdust when a new craft was in development. At the time, the only way to determine whether the rotor blades would clear the tailﬁn or if the cockpit would comfortably seat a pair of passengers was to build a full-scale mockup. Jim Vanek knew, as a given, a number of those models would be built and destroyed in the process. After his father’s retirement, Jim Vanek became the principal rotorcraft builder for Sportcopter, the family business that’s been in operation for nearly 50 years. These days, he relies on 3D CAD, so his shop floor is comparatively tidier. The creation and destruction of his mockups take place largely in the digital space on a computer screen. Sportcopter II Some folks might have wondered if Vanek was tempting fate when he chose to fly his latest creation, the Sportcopter II (SCII), for the first time on September 11, the ominous anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. But Vanek had confidence in his flying machine because he had flown it countless times inside another machine — a PC loaded with SolidWorks and COSMOSXpress. In the computer, he’d worked out the geometry, the mechanical operations, the weight, the lift, the tensile strength, and the rest of his engineering concerns. “We’ve built many aircrafts in the software that we probably will never build in the real world,” said Vanek. “Look is often 90% of what we sell. We scrapped a lot of ideas inside the computer just because of how they looked.” In the early phase, he was exploring at least 10 design alternatives for the SCII, pinned to a 4’ x 8’ whiteboard. “I’d start with a sketch, then give it to [design engineer] Evan Dagle,” he recalled, “and he’d turn it into a finished 3D model. Then we’d start pushing and pulling it to figure out the weight and the materials.” The criteria Sportcopter used to eliminate some of the designs included construction SolidWorks costs, materials costs, www.solidworks.com and the amount of time blogs.solidworks.com/mediapodcasts required to build the Sportcopter craft. Studying the difwww.sportcopter.com ferent designs in Solid14 Figure 1. Designing the Sportcopter II in SolidWorks 3D software, the makers were able to determine the angle of the tilted rotor head that provided clearance for the blades. Works, Vanek could determine the amount of plies, composite cloth, and glass needed for the fuselage and the frame, so he was able to estimate the cost. The most preferable design was one with a tilted rotor head, which meant the blades would rotate at an angle (figure 1). By animating the motions of the blades, Vanek was able to ensure they would clear the rear of the craft. “Since we could move the rotor head around,” he said, “we could get an understanding of the distance [the blades] travel.” The 2D drawings automatically generated from the 3D model of the SCII also made it into assembly instructions for the buyers. www.cadalyst.com cadalyst August 2008 http://www.solidworks.com http://blogs.solidworks.com/mediapodcasts http://www.sportcopter.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - August 2008

Cadalyst - August 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Tech Trends: Rotor Bug Strikes Again Cadalyst Labs Reviews: Digital Dreams — Visualization Software: Make Your Design Visions a Reality Maple 12 — Math Software AutoLINE 2009 — Linetype Management Add-On Deep Access — Digital-Media Asset Management Software View Point: Examining the Autodesk–Bentley Agreement CAD Manager: Managing Multioffice Mayhem MCAD Modeling: Do You Need Modeling Standards? AEC Insight: Modeling Technology for Building Engineers CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Hot Tip Harry: Better Living with Objects and Smart Entities

Cadalyst - August 2008

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