About Shell Properties

This topic provides you the information required to set the shell properties for a given solid functional set.

This page discusses:

See Also
Setting Shell Properties
Setting Draft Properties
Inserting a Solid Functional Set

Shell Properties

Shell Properties assigns a wall thickness to an active body, making it hollow, thus making the shellable volumes in the body hollow.

Each solid functional set may contain a single shell property feature that specifies the thickness of the walls globally for the solid functional set. This thickness is then used by functional features that produce walls. The shell properties are also used to define the open faces of the resulting shape.

Other Offset Faces Options

You can specify different wall thicknesses for each face using the Other Offset Faces tab.

  • Faces box under Other Thickness Faces lets you manage the selected additional faces and their individual thicknesses.

    If you select several features, the box displays the number of selected elements. To act on this selection, click to display the panel that allows you to:

    • View the selected elements and specify individual thickness values.
    • Remove any element.

  • Apply thickness to all selected faces: Applies the thickness value specified in the Thickness box to all selected faces.

Core Tab

The options available in the Core tab, let you manage the shell update. It displays the list of shellable features and how each contributes to the shape of the shell. In case of an update error in the shell property, you can quickly identify which shellable features caused the error, activate or deactivate shellable features, change their core contribution type, and try another update.

There are three types of core definitions for a shellable feature:

  • Interconnected core: The union of the interconnected shellable features is the main input of the shell property feature that computes either the inner or the outer shape for this union.

    Faces causing trouble with Interconnected Core option in Shell Properties

  • Isolated core: The offset is computed separately for the shellable features using this option. The faces of features that have an isolated core cannot be later selected in the Shell Properties dialog box as Face to remove or Face with special thickness.
  • Select core: You can select a separate body that defines the inner or outer shape of this shellable feature.

    The Shell Properties using Selected Core with Core



Display Only Parents option can be used while editing a functional feature. It is mainly useful for local modifiers such as drafts, chamfers, and fillets features that use face or edge selections.

It displays the minimum creation context of the feature being edited, by deactivating the feature and all the features which are not parents from it.

For more information, see Using the Display Only Parents Option to Retrieve a Creation Context .