Flexible Component

[Garrett317]

Let's say I have a 1-inch piece U shaped foam and I want to extend this foam around the edge of a rectangle shell with a 20 inch perimeter. My process was to constraint the foam onto the rectangle, and then use the "make flexible" tool to extend the foam. Now my issue is that I am not sure how to ensure that the foam follows just the perimeter of the rectangle (follow around the corners of the rectangle).

Maybe I am not using the flexible tool correctly.

Any tips on how to do this?

Thanks

[StephenW]

A screenshot might help to clarify what you are looking for.

Flexible only works with the dimensions you define in the part, so if you original part doesn't have some sort of corner control, you won't be able to control that within the assembly.

I may be way off in this part, so Ignore if I'm out in left field:

if I'm imagining correctly, I would think you would need your foam "part" file to have a sweep feature that controls the rectangular shape of an arbitrary panel with some sort of corner control in the part (rounds/chamfers...etc).

I don't think you can make it work like a true bulk material.

[RoyCrerar]

Hi, From what you describe I appears to me that you are really trying to do a sweep of a section around a profile rather than a flexible part. 

Making flexible on the foam U section would probably be if it was a gasket that you wanted to compress between two surfaces.  The modeling of that might be an issue depending on how it needs to compress. If you look at something simple like a gasket between two flat faces then it's easy to make the gasket flexible between the measure that is those faces but when it is on it's own it is the original size.