Designing a heat exchanger for MAE 412. We want to model it in autocad/solidworks. We have a heat exchanger with N number of tubes and we want it in a cylinder. Is there a way to use an array to make say 1500 circles in a circular pattern with a certain spacing between them?

9/24/2008 8:54:28 PM

yes, at least with Autocad. I'm sure solidworks supportings similar macro scripting to do it

9/24/2008 9:13:44 PM

Yeah i can do the inital array with the array command. I just need to write a macro do repeat it over and over again or something.

9/24/2008 9:16:29 PM

like i said,

http://thecadgeek.com/blog/2007/09/18/creating-script-files-with-excel/

https://forum.solidworks.com/ (Click on the API section)

http://www.lennyworks.com/solidworks/default.asp?ID=30 (Lots of info here about macros in solidworks).

9/24/2008 9:30:46 PM

aren't we supposed to be using a square or stagger pattern? Both are rectangular arrays, the trouble is trimming the pattern ,especially since it's the # of instances, not a simple perforated section fill.

9/25/2008 12:30:14 AM

^it's a cylinder and we're supposed to fill it right?

-so yeah we have to trim it to fit in a circle.

[Edited on September 25, 2008 at 12:34 AM. Reason : ..]

9/25/2008 12:33:18 AM

yeah, but a circular pattern won't work, I thought that's what you were saying in the first post.

this is like a backwards nesting problem.

In Inventor, you could set up the pattern and suppress the ones that don't fit. Do you want to script the radius of the shell, too?

9/26/2008 5:51:21 PM

You want the honeycomb pattern with the tubes, not circular.

9/26/2008 7:38:04 PM