CAD Forum

I'm modelling a pressure vessel with reinforced pipe inlets and outlets. I usually model these reinforcements (just a flat donut ring welded around the pipe) by using the wrap feature (sketch the donut on a plane and then wrap to my cylindrical vessel).

However, I also know how these are actually fabricated by cutting the donut out of existing pipe stock the same size as the vessel pipe stock and then beating on it to bend it slightly to fit. I figure this is a good opportunity to try and simulate this process using the "Deform" feature of solidworks.

So, I've done the easy part, modelling the donut (create pipe section, sketch donut on plane, extrude cut). I then created another sketch to contain some reference curves for the deformation. I'm having trouble getting all the faces of the solid to deform. I'm very unfamiliar with the tool. I'm doing reading on it as well but thought I would post here too.

Here is a picture of my donut section and the guide curves (maybe I have the wrong curves, maybe the wrong settings...)

So, if anyone has any general ideas about the deform tool and if it can be used how I'm trying to, feel free to post. This is all just me trying to get more familiar with it. The gist is to take a piece with an existing radius and slightly flatten it to a slightly large radius. Here is a top picture to make it a little more clear (hopefully).