Calculating the sum of all tube lengths in an assembly... Help!

[MikeMortimer]

Hi all,

Basically, I have an assembly in Pro/E WF5 which is essentially a large steel frame, welded together featuring about 100 steel square tube lengths.

There are about 10 tube length variations, each has been modelled.

Is there any way I can use relations & parameters to automatically add up the total length of all tube sections?

I'm not sure how to do it, but in my head I imagined inside each tube .prt I could assign the relevant length dimension to a variable and then in the assembly calculating the sum of all of those variables... The only thing is, all the variables will be called the same name, is this possible? Or does someone know of a convenient and automatic method of adding up the lengths of all these various tube sections!

Thanks in advance!

Mike.

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[KshetrabasiMaha]

Hi

Check this discussion

http://communities.ptc.com/thread/39379

Regards

K.Mahanta

[MikeMortimer]

Thanks for the link to the thread K.Mahanta, I could use that technique as a last resort, but I was hoping someone would know how to do this purely within the relations window.

For example, there won't necessarily be a drawing associated with the assembly, also creating the table as in that thread you posted is quite a lengthy process to do for each assembly (in the future) which use the tube sections.

Is there a way to isolate the calculation of the total length to within Relations & Parameters, this way any engineer in my office can quickly copy across any equations / code into the Relations window of any assembly they may have which feature the tube sections...

Cheers!

[dschenken]

If the circumstances are right - take the total part volume and divide by the tube section area. This presumes the tubes are the same section and that only tubes are present. If not, you'll have to make some adjustments.

Is this calculation an engineering convenience, rather than a direct drive to outside software? You could make a simplified rep of just the tubes based on a rule about some tube-specific characteristic to sort out the tubes from anything else.

Other detail about the circumstance may help get to a better solution.