Modeling Considerations

The main consideration in this model involve modeling the variable number of fins and screws or screw holes. Each member of the family can have a different number of these fins and screws. The members of this family are not topologically equivalent. Therefore, creating a master part for this family is more difficult. The members aren't simply of different size, as the members of the other families were.

Along with the main consideration, there are several secondary items to consider while constructing a modeling strategy for this part. The first of these is how to model the terminal screws and screw holes. The three modeling options here are to leave the screws and screw holes out entirely, model just the screw holes, or model the screws in place, using bosses to represent the heads of the screws. The next consideration is the construction of the fins themselves. The drawing on the specification shows fillets along the eight exposed edges (as shown in Figure 4.18.) Most of these fillets are not required by the specification. Finally, there are the mounting holes, which also may or may not be included in the model. Feedback from the C5SC users suggested that the mounting holes should be included, and either the screw holes or the screw heads included.

A set of these parts already existed at Raytheon. However, they were wireframe profiles from an earlier version of CADDS, and thus unusable for the purposes of this study. These models were simply the outline of the parts, with no screw holes or screws. Instead, they had points on the top face for the screws and points on the bottom face for the mounting holes. Only four of the eight sides of the fins (the vertical ones) were filleted. These are the four edges marked in the specification as being filleted. The other four edges were left unfilleted.

Last Modified: Wed Aug 28 14:41:29 EDT 1996