Shell Solid

Introduction

The Solid Shell function is used to remove one or more faces of a solid body and recreate the solid with the specified wall thickness for the remaining surfaces. You can also shell the whole solid to create a closed hollow solid.

Navigation

To open Shell Solid, do one of the following:

In the Solids menu, click Shell.

On the Solids toolbar, click the icon.

Right-click anywhere in the Workspace, point to CAD, Solids, and click Shell.

The parameters display in the Data Entry tab of the Data-CAM Tree Manager.

The Data Entry Parameters

Geometry Selection

Whole Solid - With this checkbox cleared, selection mode will be set to individual surface faces only.

Whole Solid - With this checkbox selected, selection mode will be set to solid bodies only.

Selected Geometry
This will list the entities the shell function will be applied to.

(Delete) - removes the selected entity from the Selected Geometry list.

(Delete All) - removes all entities from the Selected Geometry list.

Direction

The direction parameters determine which way the shelled solid is created from the original solid.

Inward - when this option is selected, the shell will be created by offsetting inward from the original geometry.
Outward - - when this option is selected, the shell will be created by offsetting outward from the original geometry.

Parameters

Wall Thickness - is the thickness for the resulting surfaces of the shelled model.

Fillet Edges - creates fillets for all resulting shelled surface edges. This option uses the Wall Thickness parameter for the fillet radius.

Fillet Edges - does not create fillets.

IMPORTANT: The Fillet Edges parameter is applied to outward shell creation, and is very important for creating successful shelled surfaces. Turning this option on or off can often resolve failed calculations. The Fillet Edges option uses the Wall Thickness as the fillet radius so the dimensions of the original solid must allow this radius to be applied.

Show Preview / Hide Preview

Once geometry has been added to the Selected Geometry list, selecting this toggle will enable, and disable the CAD preview, which displays the result that will be created when you click OK.

OK - performs the function to create the geometry shown in the CAD preview.

Cancel - closes the Data Entry Manager.

Quick Steps - Shell Solid

1 Open the function and define all Data Entry parameters.

2 Click to select one or more faces of the solid that you want to remove.

You can perform the function on one or more solids.

3 Once geometry is added to the Selected Geometry list, click Show Preview to see a preview of the result.

4 If needed, update the Data Entry parameters.

The changes update the CAD preview.

5 Click OK to create the shell.

The feature is added to the CAD Tree.

6 Repeat this process as needed for any other solids, if you want to create another shell with different parameters.

7 Click Cancel to close the function.