Filling Holes in Airfoil Surface

NEALROSENBLUM · ‎Jan 05, 2012

All,

I have several holes in an airfoil surface. The airfoil was provided to my by a customer in STEP format. See attached JPEG.

How can I fill these holes so that the "patches" provide continuous curvature?

Maybe I should expand the holes slightly so that the holes are 4-sided. Then I can easilycreate a boundary blend with its edges with continuous curvature to the parent??? Then merge?

I do not have an ISDX license.

TIA.

Sincerely,
Neal Rosenblum
Geometrix Engineering, Inc.
201 N. 13th Avenue
Hollywood, FL 33019
Ph: 954-920-2049
Fax: 954-920-9574
Cell: 954-649-9399
neal@geometrixeng.c

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bgruman · ‎Jan 05, 2012

Neal,

The Boundary method that you refer to may work, but may be tricky. Here
are a couple of other suggestions that I would try before going to the work
of boundaries...

1) Try a surface copy. Select the large twisted top surface, copy,
paste, then in the dashboard select the "fill holes" option and select the
edge of the hole. You can then trim the new surface to the hole edge
profile. Then Solidify, or merge it into the parent.

2) Try a Freeform copy. Insert, Advanced, Surface Free Form... Select
the large twisted top surface, accept the rest of the default options and
say OK. Then similar to option one, you can trim the new surface to the
hole edge profile, then solidify, or merge it into the parent.

Good Luck
Bernie

Bernie Gruman
Owner / Designer / Builder
www.GrumanCreations.com

bfrandsen · ‎Jan 06, 2012

As this is imported geometry, I would use Import Data Doctor functionality. It allows you to delete the holes boundaries and reveal the original surface instead.

Bjarne

In Reply to Neal Rosenblum:

All,

I have several holes in an airfoil surface. The airfoil was provided to my by a customer in STEP format. See attached JPEG.

How can I fill these holes so that the "patches" provide continuous curvature?

Maybe I should expand the holes slightly so that the holes are 4-sided. Then I can easilycreate a boundary blend with its edges with continuous curvature to the parent??? Then merge?

I do not have an ISDX license.

TIA.

Sincerely,
Neal Rosenblum
Geometrix Engineering, Inc.
201 N. 13th Avenue
Hollywood, FL 33019
Ph: 954-920-2049
Fax: 954-920-9574
Cell: 954-649-9399
neal@geometrixeng.c

Bjarne Frandsen

(Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 M170andWindchill 9.1M060 on Windows)

bokm9606 · ‎Jan 06, 2012

I agree with Bjarne. If the holes do not cross intersections of neighboring surfaces, you should be able to "delete" the contour that defines the hole in within the context of the import.

I was a little better at such operations in older versions of Pro/E. The "import" function in WF5.0 look more friendly and I am sure you can still do the same thing.

amedina · ‎Jan 06, 2012

Neal,

you can go to the import feature, then edit definition->geometry->import
data doctor. that will get you to where you can use the import data doctor
or heal geometry. you have to select the pink edges to delete them. If the
hole is solid rather than just on surfaces then you will have to delete the
internal surface of the hole. Once you have deleted the internal hole
surfaces and hole outline the main surfaces should be continuous. It could
be a lot harder than this if the surface where the hole is are actually
several surfaces rather than just one. In that case you'll have to know the
data doctor. hope this helps.

regards,

Alfonso

BobSchwerdlin · ‎Jan 06, 2012

Extrude a rectangular surface that you will use as a surface trim up past the primary surface of the airfoil. This rectangular surface needs to be a little bit larger than the surfaces that need to be fixed. This will result in a clean cut of 4 nice edges around the surface in question. Now add a boundary surface with all 4 sides tangent to the base airfoil surface. Merge the surfaces together and repeat for all the other effected surface areas. Fast, easy and robust.

Bob

mbrockman · ‎Jan 09, 2012

Neil,

sorry 'bout the late chirp, but I've found the easiest and quickest way to "fill" those holes is to eliminate the "contours" of the original surface. That is done by -Editing the definition of the feature - Geometry - Heal Geometry- Manual-Edit Boundary-Delete Contour. Select the surface and toggle 'til you find the "hole" in question and voila, its gone.

Good Luck,

Mark

NEALROSENBLUM · ‎Jan 09, 2012

Thank you to all who replied.

I was not able to find the HEAL GEOMETRY selection in the data doctor. I Googled "data doctor pro e" and found a few hits that did not seem to jive with the Wildfire 5.0 (M060) menu structure (i.e. older versions/builds of Pro|E???).

My original idea of extruding some rectagular surfaces up to the parent feature worked pretty well. I used the rectangular extruded surfaces (just a small amount larger than the oblong holes)to trim the parent surface, and then I created individual boundary blends for eachof the 4 rectangular holes with constant curvature contrainsts along each of the edges. The only think that I did not like about this solution was that it left remnants of the "patches". So when I view the airfoil in a wireframe mode, I can see the 4 rectangular patches on the airfoil. My customer questioned this as well.

The BEST solution, which I think is a takeoff of HEAL GEOMETRY, was the removal of the holes. I selected the edges of each of the 4 holes individually. While the edges were highlighted, I went to theEDIT pulldown menu and selected REMOVE. This magically removed the holes and left no remnants of the previous geometry behind. So I essentially have 4 removal features in my model tree...much better than all of the extrusions, boundary blends, merges, etc...

Sincerely,
Neal Rosenblum
Geometrix Engineering, Inc.
201 N. 13th Avenue
Hollywood, FL 33019
Ph: 954-920-2049
Fax: 954-920-9574
Cell: 954-649-9399
neal@geometrixeng.c

jer3d1 · ‎Jan 10, 2012

I like the remove tool for this one.

Select the edges of the borders of the holes and then use Edit --> Remove.

This will fill in the opening as though it was never there. It also leaves you with a feature in the model tree if you ever need to see/reference the hole in the future. If you prefer not to have a feature in the model tree, you can use remove from the Import Data Doctor environment as well.

I realize there are already excellent solutions for this problem, I just felt like contributing to the knowledge base. Thanks for sharing this question Neal.

All the best,
Jered