How to Create a Circular Weld

In this technical tip we will look at how to create an animation that simulates a staggered circular weld being applied to two parts. Weld and fabrications drawings can be confusing and in many cases the person doing the welding has to interpret weld symbols and identify which parts to apply the weld. If you organization is concerned with quality and repeatability you may need to remove the human element of interpreting the weld symbols. Cortona3D RapidManual can provide you with a tool that allows you to show the welder exactly which pieces need welding and where to locate the welds. This removes the guesswork and will increase repeatability, quality and reduce rework or possibly scrap.
 

The basic process is to:
 

1)      Create a weld gun model and import the gun into your project. Once the gun has been added you can set its position to your start point.
 
2)      Do some prep work:

a. That includes splitting some of your welds to provide a smooth look. NOTE: You will not need to split welds that are linear. In this case we are dealing with a circular weld and need to split the welds.

b. Hide the welds since we will be showing them later on in the process.

c. Hide the initial weld gun.

3)      The first animation is to move the gun into position and then “apply” the weld to the circular edge. You will do all these functions as an Action union. In order to get the scale you will need to create a new function that uses the Scale atom. This is the real trick to the entire process.


   

To view the interactive output for this procedure please click here.






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