Applying shrinkage to a body using warp: is it equivalent to the shrinkage feature?

[tbraxton]

I am working to update a workflow to support designs specific to some variable manufacturing processes. To support this workflow accounting for growth/shrinkage of components in the design must be managed. To date I have used the mold design shrinkage feature on a part to change its size. This morphing reference part serves as a parent to other parts in the design.

Prior to Creo 7 I have managed this with the shrinkage feature and a notebook (formerly layout) to manage the relations controlling the interface of this reference model to dependent models in the design. It is worth all of the work to set this up to enable automated design updates but as one would imagine it is not trivial and takes quite some time to get it validated.

With the introduction of multibody modeling, I could potentially streamline this by getting rid of the notebook if I could scale a body in a part model. Shrinkage features cannot be applied to a body, so this begs the question is the warp transform scaling functionality really a substitute for a shrinkage feature.

A long time ago when warp was introduced as a function, I evaluated it and determined that it was a freeform styling function and not an engineering feature due to the lack of explicit control of parameters and geometry. I am not sure it has changed but I know some users have used the warp transform to scale a model and the warp can be applied to a body.

I would absolutely require true fidelity of geometry (i.e. topology, surface normals, surfaces within quilts) and internal feature ids to be maintained in the body post warp application. I do not think warp is capable of this. If anyone can offer observations on how warp behaves in the context of what I am asking I would appreciate hearing about your experience.

[Michael]

In your query about the equivalence of applying shrinkage to a body using the warp feature compared to using the mold design shrinkage feature, it’s essential to consider the specific requirements and capabilities of each method.

The mold design shrinkage feature in Creo Parametric is specifically designed for mold design applications. It uniformly scales the part or a body based on the shrinkage rate, which is critical in mold design to compensate for the material shrinkage during the cooling process. This feature ensures consistent and uniform scaling, maintaining the fidelity of the geometry and internal feature IDs, which seems to be a crucial aspect for you.

On the other hand, the warp feature is more of a freeform modification tool. Originally introduced for styling and freeform shape modifications, it allows you to deform a model non-uniformly. While the warp tool includes a scaling functionality, its primary use is for freeform deformation. The warp tool might not provide the same level of control and uniformity in scaling as the mold design shrinkage feature. This could potentially affect the fidelity of the geometry and the internal feature IDs, as you mentioned.

If you require precise, uniform scaling to account for material shrinkage, particularly where maintaining the integrity of the geometry and feature IDs is critical, the mold design shrinkage feature would be more suitable. The warp feature, while capable of scaling, is more aligned with freeform shape modifications and might not offer the same level of precision and uniformity needed for your specific application.

~ CreoVerse