Chapter 11: Creating Assembly Features
In This Chapter
Removing material in the assembly Creating assembly level fillets and chamfers Making weld beads in the assembly Using envelopes
SolidWorks enables users to create features in assemblies that do not show up on individual parts. They are created in the assembly and only exist there. These tend to be features that would be manufactured after parts are assembled, and affect several parts at once, such as weld beads, or holes drilled after parts are put together. You can use standard features or the Hole Wizard to create some of these features.
You can use the following as assembly features:
• Hole features (series, wizard, simple)
• Cuts (extrude, revolve)
• Other (fillet, chamfer, weld bead)
• Patterns (patterns of existing assembly features)
Weld beads are covered to some extent in Chapter 20, which is devoted to weldments, but because weldments in SolidWorks are typically multi-body parts, weld beads are covered again here as proper assembly features.
Assembly features do not create in-context relationships between parts, but they do extend the history-based design paradigm to include the assembly. Assembly features do raise some best practice questions, however. The parts in an assembly should be fully defined with mates to the best extent possible, and this is even more important when creating features that affect multiple parts. In some situations where a shape affects multiple parts, it may be a better option to use master ...
