Piston Crank and Connecting Sketch Assembly
Piston Crank and Connecting Sketch Assembly
Contact
a piston
a connecting rod
a crankshaft
a crankcase
The piston
Create a new part by going to File > New… and selecting Part.
Add a horizontal line from the origin (the couple of red arrows) to the
left. Using the Smart Dimension tool and by clicking on the line, set
its length to 13.50 mm.
Go ahead and add the other lines. To set the distance between two
lines, simply click on the first one then on the other.
Set the two vertical lines on the left as collinear, by clicking on both of
them and applying a Collinear relation. In the end, the entire sketch
should be black, meaning that it is fully constrained.
Exit the sketch.
In the Features tab, select the revolution tool:
As an axis, select the vertical line on the far right, starting from the
origin. Then validate. Here is the result (with section view enabled):
On the front plane, add the following sketch. The dashed line is
for construction purposes. You can add such a line by clicking on the
little arrow next to the line icon to expand the menu. This line will not
be considered as a valid profile so it won’t be taken into account when
it comes to adding or cutting some volume. It will nonetheless help us
to place this circle.
Exit this sketch. In the Features tab, find the Extruded Cut tool. We
now want to cut the piston with a cylinder. Thus, complete the panel
like so.
Save your part in the folder of your choice.
Extrude the profile with those parameters. Then hide or delete the
surface:
Exit the sketch, and select the Extruded Cut tool. We want the
outside of the rod to be cut. We are thus on the wrong plane, since the
cut should come from the outside. However, the From box of the panel
will help us. Set it to Surface/Face/Plane then select the long
surface. The extrusion should have a distance of 1.00 mm.
On the Features panel, search for the Mirror tool and mirror the
whole part with respect to the right plane.
The crankshaft
Let’s start by the following sketch on the right plane. Start by the
horizontal construction line from the origin and then add the rest.
The construction line above will be the axis along which we will rotate
the sketch to create volume. On the Features tab click on
the Revolve tool.
Now add this rectangle in a new sketch on the right plane.
Find the Sketch Fillet tool.
Find the Mirror Entities tool in the Sketch tab. Specify the
vertical construction line to be the axis and click OK.
Use this sketch to cut the part. However, you need to tell SolidWorks
that you want to cut outside this profile rather than inside, or else it
would yield a somewhat strange result.
To do so, check the Flip side to cut box.
Open a new part and start a sketch on the front plane. Draw two
concentric circles:
Extrude it using the Mid Plane preset with a distance set to 27 mm.
You may also add chamfers to the outer edges.
The joint is very similar, but without chamfers. Simply extrude the
following from 8 mm.
The crankcase (1/3)
This component will be divided into three different parts. To start with,
we are going to model the easiest one.
Use this couple of lines to cut the crankcase by using the Revolved
Cut tool. This tool should automatically add thickness to your profile
in order to define a volume which will be removed from the main part.
There is still something wrong here. Look at the front of your model.
The cylinder and the upper part are not connected!
We can finish this part using one more profile. Start a sketch on the
lower face of the revolved fins and add a circle fitting the inner circle
of the existing piece:
Exit the sketch. Use it first to cut the cylinder facing the Z direction.
The sketch you used is now gone. Not really though, merely hidden.
You can access it through the FeatureManager:
Click on the sketch and add the offset in the From box. Chose Up To
Body as the extrusion preset. The sketch is thereby extruded until it
reaches the main body. This is sometimes convenient.
Then, make a 13 mm of diameter hole in this new cylinder.
The assembly
Once all the required parts are created and saved on your computer,
it is time to gather and connect them in a single file using constraints.
Add the crankshaft to the scene. Make it concentric with the rest:
Select the two highlighted faces and make them coplanar using
a Coincident Mate.
You should now be able to add the mate without problem. Add the
axis and the piston. Make their front plane coincident and their axis
concentric. You can access their planes in the FeatureManager on
the left. Add the connecting rod the same way:
The piston should translate into the crankcase. As a matter of fact, you
must add a Concentric Mate between the piston and the inner
cylindrical face of the crankcase.
Furthermore, align the connecting rod and the crankshaft:
Add the joint between the connecting rod and the crankshaft too.
That’s it! All the parts are forming a whole system. Try to move the
parts a bit. Translate the piston or rotate the crankshaft to see the
engine in action.
Obviously, this engine's model is highly simplified. This tutorial gave
you the basics of SolidWorks modelization, from sketches to assembly,
without worrying about too much details!
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