The cylindrical bending operation allows you to bend arbitrary structures around a mathematically defined cylinder. Activate the local WCS and start the operation in ribbon Modeling: Tools > Bend Tools > Cylindrical Bend. Multi-selection of solids with discrete ports and lumped elements is supported. You may also select the items by choosing a group folder or material folder.
Limitation: Lumped elements and discrete ports which are inside the bending region are ignored in the cylindrical bending.
In the following example the local WCS is placed in the center of the top face. Once you have activated the local WCS and selected the solid, you can start the operation in the ribbon. Then the dialog is opened and the bending region and the cylinder around which the shape is going to be bent are displayed in the 3D view. The cylinder is defined by the radius or the angle which you can enter in the dialog.
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Cylindrical Bend> | |
Impact direction
One sided: The u-axis of the local WCS indicates the direction of the bending.
Two sided: The bending is performed along the entire u-axis of the local WCS.
Bending parameters
Choose how the cylinder is defined around which the items are going to be bent:
Angle: The cylinder is defined by the angle.
Radius: The cylinder is defined by the radius.
Limit bending region
U-Length: Limit the bending region along the u-axis of the local WCS.
V-Length: Limit the bending region along the v-axis of the local WCS.
Automatic detection of reference solid: When limiting the bending region, internally a reference solid has to be detected which indicates the connectivity of unconnected items. Uncheck this option to specify your own reference solid. Note that the automatic detection of the reference solid might be very time consuming, therefore it is recommended to specify your own reference solid.
Reference solid: Choose a shape by entering the tree-name. Auto-completion is available.
Automatic detection of thickness along the w-axis: The thickness of the items in the bending region along the w-axis is automatically detected. Uncheck this option to specify your own thickness value.
Thickness: Enter the thickness value for the items in the bending region along the w-axis.
Example: Use a Reference Solid
In this example, we bend the shape from the above example around an cylinder with the impact direction 'Two sided'.
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Cylindrical Bend> |  |
Example: Limit the Bending Region
In this example, we want to limit the bending region in order to bend only one part of the PCB. Therefore, we collect all items in an own group folder and place the local WCS on the PCB.
The we select the group folder and start the cylindrical bending in the ribbon Modeling: Tools > Bend Tools > Cylindrical Bend.
In the dialog the user can limit the bending region in u- and v-direction by specifying appropriate values.
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Cylindrical Bend> |  |
Example: Use a Reference Solid
When you bend a structure with many shapes and with limiting the bending region then the connectivity of the items has to be detected. By default, an internal unite operation detects automatically the reference solid. This operation can be very time-consuming. Therefore, it is recommended to enter an own reference solid in the dialog.
For a PCB, you may pick the bottom face of the bottom substrate and make a shape from this face with the operation in the ribbon 
Modeling: Shapes > Faces and Apertures >Shape from Picked Faces. Then, thicken the sheet such that it is at least as high as the PCB by using the operation 
Modeling: Tools > Shape Tools > Shell Solid or Thicken Sheet...
Note: When you add the reference solid to the items which you want to bend, then you can use the reference solid for further cylindrical bending operations as well.
| 1. Create the reference solid and add it to the group folder. | 2. Set the bending parameters, unselect the automatic detection of the reference solid and specify your own reference solid in the dialog. | 3. Apply the cylindrical bending operation by pressing the Apply button. | 4. Click on the Transf. WCS button and move the local WCS along the v-axis. | 5. Change the Angle to -90 and the V-Length to 10 in the dialog. Press the Apply button. |
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In the next example, we use a layer stackup like a gift wrap. Therefore, we have to perform four cylindrical bending operations. Before each operation, we re-position the local WCS. The result you can see in the following pictures.
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Cylindrical Bend> |  |
In order to bend a S-like structure, we perform a cylindrical bending operation with angle of 180 degree. The next cylindrical bending operation has to be again with angle of 180 degree. To assure the correct thickness value, unselect the automatic detection of the thickness value along the w-axis. Then enter the thickness value for the items in the bending region. You can see in the 3D view that another rectangle in the v-w-plane is drawn which indicates the thickness value along the w-axis. The thickness value is used in positive and negative w-direction.
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Cylindrical Bend> |  |
See also
