Swapping the Skin

You can swap geometry from an engineering surface to a manufacturing surface, using a normal projection.

Notes:
  • This task is available in Composites Design and in Composites Manufacturing Preparation.
  • Skin swapping can be performed only on tangency continuous shells.
  • If a Swapping feature already exists, you are given the choice between creating a new one or editing the existing one.

See Also
About Skin Swapping
Managing Skin Swapping Groups
Swapping the Skin with Wrap Curve
  1. From the Skin Swapping and Ply Extensions section of the action bar, click Skin Swapping .
  2. In Stacking (Manufacturing), select a ply, a sequence, a group of plies, cut-pieces, an edge of part or a stacking where you want to insert the swapping.

    • Multiselection of entities is available.
    • in the dialog box gives access to the Stacking Management.
    • As Edge Of Part and Swapping are not symmetric operations, the skin swapping of an EOP created from plies is not strictly equal to the EOP created from swapped plies.

    The engineering surface to be swapped is already selected under Swap.
  3. Select the manufacturing surface with which you want to swap the engineering surface.
    The draping direction is displayed in the work area.
  4. Optional: Click Invert to reverse the draping direction and be consistent with the direction defined in the engineering plies.
  5. Select the Swapping mode.
  6. Select a Continuity type (correction mode for the smoothing).
    • No smoothing: This is the default mode.
    • Threshold: The tangency and curvature thresholds options are taken into account.
    • Point: No point discontinuity should remain.
    • Tangent: No tangent discontinuity should remain.
    • Curvature: No curvature discontinuity should remain.
  7. Set the Tangency threshold.under which the curve is smoothed.
  8. Select the Curvature threshold check box and specify the discontinuity value above which the curve is smoothed.
  9. Define the Maximum deviation allowed between the initial curve and the smoothed curve.
    The resulting smoothed curve fits into a pipe which radius is the maximum deviation value and the center curve is defined by the selected curve.
  10. Optional: If you have selected a stacking, a plies group or a sequence, select the Invert stacking order check box to invert the order of plies during the swapping.
    The engineering geometry is transferred onto the manufacturing surface. It is put in the No show space on the engineering surface.

    In the tree, the Swapping feature (identified as Swapping.xxx) is created under the ply and a Skin Swapping Group is created under the Stacking.

  11. Double-click a tree to edit it.
    1. Select the new manufacturing surface. It is displayed under With.
    Only the ply referencing the feature is modified.
  12. To change the manufacturing surface of a plies group:
    1. Double-click the plies group feature in manufacturing stacking.
    2. Proceed as explained above.

    Tips:
    • Butt Splice Zones are taken into account if you select the Stacking node.
    • If you applied the Skin Swapping to elements under the stacking, you can generate a Skin Swapping feature for the Butt Splice Zones by selecting either a zone or its group. In this case, a Skin Swapping feature is added at the end of the Composites Geometry of the corresponding elements.