CATIA Coatch

CATIA Teacher

Knowing about powerful 3D modeling tools is must if you are pursuing an engineering course. If your college does't provide the free training then too there are various coaching centers around, which teach CAD/CAM tools. Though they are good but many of us find it difficult to afford. That's why I decided to write a helping article which would introduce you to the basics of the Part Design Workbench of CATIA. CATIA contains lot many tools too other than just mechanical design, but I would restrain my topic to the Part Design Workbench only. Knowing the method of modeling  a 3D part and assembling it to the other parts in the Assembly Design Workbench is an enough introduction to start with CATIA. Once you master this much, you may step forward on your own to other workbenches, since they are similar. Though, newer versions of CATIA are already available, I would take all the references from CATIA V5 R17. 

There are always two or more ways to do an action but I would cover only one way to proceed which would be the simplest and straightest.

Starting CATIA V5 R17

a). For this you need to double click the shortcut icon of CATIA on your desktop and wait for some time since CATIA always takes time to start
b). Once the CATIA starts, you will see this window--

Here, a default workbench is already opened which you need to close. After closing, the screen would appear like this--

Starting Part Design workbench

To open the required workbench, you need to click the Start button shown in the figure--


Since we intend to do some mechanical design, we will click the Mechanical Design option and the workbenches will appear, of which we have to choose one--

Now click the Part Design option. When you try to envoke the Part Design Workbench, this tab will appear--

Click the Enable hybrid Design option and Part work bench which would look like this--

There are various design tools available at the left side of the workbench

First one shows the work bench title. You can change the work bench from here.

Second one shows the Select  bar. It contains selection features

Third one shows sketcher in this case. It shows two sketch modes: Sketch and Positioned Sketch

Fourth one shows Sketch based features. These are the tools for 3D part modeling. It contains

Pad- it is used to extrude a 2D sketch into a 3D sketch.




Pocket- is used to create a pocket of any desired shape in the solid part



Shaft- is used to sweep a 2D drawing around an axis up to the desired angle to create a circular 3D solid shape




Groove- is used to create a groove of required shape around an axis in the preformed solid part


Hole- this tool is used to drill circular holes in the preformed solid part up to the desired depth



Rib- it is the advanced stage of pad tool. It is used to extrude a desired profile around any required center curve





Slot- this one is used to cut slots in a preformed solid part


Solid Combine- is used to combine two preformed solid parts as the name suggests


Multi-section Solid- it is used to create sections of a pre-designed solid 3D


Removed Multi-section Solid- it is similar to the above tool



Apart from these design based features, there are dressup features which constitute
Edge Fillet - it is used to imply rounded fillet at the edges of the prepared solid part
Chamfer- it is used to provide chamfer at an angle at the edges of the designed part
Draft Angle- it is used to provide required draft angle on a solid part
Shell- it takes the hollow shell out of a solid part
Thickness- it is used for thickness feature
Thread/Tap- it is used to provide inside and outside thread in a circular part
Remove Face- it removes face if required

There are 3 extended Reference Elements too named as Point, Line and Plane. These are very helpful if we intend to create some complicated solid shapes

There are various other features too which are not of much requirement for a beginner

Now since you have read this much, you are well introduced to part design work bench, but introduction is not enough, since a 2D sketch is must if you intend to do something real on CATIA. For this purpose, you may either open a pre-existing sketch or create one of your own on sketcher workbench.
For going to the sketcher workbench, you need to select the sketcher button from the feature bar and select any required plane(xy, yz or xz). Selecting a plane is mandatory since the sketcher will envoke in the selected plane only. The sketcher bench will have grid of perpendicular and equally spaced lines.

The work bench and select bars are at the same places but after that there are many sketching tools there is a constraint bar below the select bar and it contains different kinds of constrain tools.
Next comes the Profile. It constitutes various drawing tools like
Profile- it is meant for drawing straight lines one after the other joint to each other
Rectangle- using this tool, you can draw rectangles by specifying different variables as per requirement, you may also draw elongated holes, keyholes, hexagon and parallelogram under this tool.
Circle-  you can draw full circle, semi circle and arc by specifying required variables, using this tool
Spline- it is used to draw spline.
Ellipse- it is used to draw ellipse, parabola, hyperbola and conic
Line- it is used to draw various types of lines
Axis- it is used to draw any reference axis at a required point at a required angle
Point by Clicking- it is used to specify a point.

After the profile editing tools, comes the Operation tools. These are used to do some operations on the drawn sketch. This bar constitutes
Corner
Chamfer
Trim
Mirror
Project 3D Elements

Now since you have all the tools, first step is to draw a 2D sketch in the selected plane using sketcher workbench as per your requirement. After the sketch is complete, you need to exit the workbench and revert back to Part Design workbench. After this you can pad, shaft or rib as per your requirement. and use Dress-up features to create the full fledged drawing.
It is to be kept in mind that every part that you design, should be constrained fully using the constrain features. It is must, because if the drawing is not constrained, the dimensions may change at the time of assembly which would wash away the hard work done in designing.
The tree shown at the left hand is very useful as it records every action taken during designing. So if you need to review anything, then you may refer the tree. If, while designing, scale is too enlarged or minimized then you should right click the Part Body in the Tree and select Reframe on, and every thing will come in the view.


Now I have introduced you to the basic of CATIA V5 and you may get batter in this with your own hard work, all that you need is to practice and find the correct use of the powerful features of CATIA for your benefit.
Once you are able to use all tools of Part Design and make 3D parts easily as per the drawing, you can try 'Assembly Design' and 'Wireframe & Surface Design' further. The tools and features are similar, you just need to figure out.

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