Continued from page 5

Step 5. Create the sheet metal wall. The last step is to create the sheet metal wall by selecting the Offset option, selecting Quilt, set Offset distance to 0, select Material side and input the thickness. The part is then mirrored and the hood is complete (Fig. 21).

Figure 21.

The drawing of the hood displays all “shown” dimensions without the need for any “created” dimensions (Figs 22a-b).

Figure 22a (click to enlarge)		Figure 22b (click to enlarge)

The Model Feature tree is shown below with the curves and surfaces renamed for quick identification.

Wrap-up

You can now modify this simple hood design over and over again, with all the integrity a good Pro/ENGINEER model should have. All the dimensions required to create the hood come from the 2D body curves and are fully parametric to the surfaces.

Figures 23a-d

The true test of a model’s robustness is to play around with the dimensions to see if it fails. If it does, either the model has exceeded its performance limits or it is not robust enough. Below are some “tweaked” versions of the hood model that was modified by selecting a few dimensions from the 2D body curves (Figs. 23a-d).

Phillip Vaughan is the cab body engineer at Stewart and Stevenson Tactical Vehicle Systems, LP. He can be reached by e-mail at p.vaughan@ssss.com.