FRAME DESIGN

This above frame is designed using a special tool located in Autodesk inventor called “FRAME”, which has the capacity of generating standardized structural members. This is one of the most powerful tools that can be use in the package. The punch ability of the generated frame to be converted  to weldment is additional plus for those wishing to quickly fabricate their component right away after the design.

The ability to carry out welding and finite element analysis could be a double plus for any structural member designer. What could be more interesting than pre-fabricating your structure in your system, confirming the suitability of the design by applying few steps in your CAD environment?

The simple step-to-step is to start drafting the wireframe of your structures, then applying variety of standardized structural shapes in Autodesk inventor.  One angle I find very refreshing is the ability to import your wireframes previously drafted in other package to your Autodesk environment. I actually drafted this wireframe in AutoCAD, since Autodesk inventor drafting could be time wasting coupled with lack of flexibility on most of the drafting tools. On a second guess, the wireframe I drafted in Rhinoceros CAD (pioneer test to check the compatibility came out positive).

The *.igs *.iges file format works very well in Autodesk inventor, this simple means that one can draft his wireframe in any package he is very proficient with and then exporting it to Autodesk inventor for smooth generation of structural members. I wish time could permit to start relaying some video tutorials.