About Stiffeners on a Free Edge

This topic provides you with a few tips about the placement and orientation of stiffeners on a free edge.

This page discusses:

See Also
Creating a Stiffener on a Free Edge

Support

Stiffeners can be created on free edges, that is:

  • Edges generated by openings on panels and plates
  • Edges generated by limits on panels and plates
  • Any other border edges (curves)

The first selection determines the support mode. This mode cannot be changed. A free edge stiffener created on an opening can only accept another opening as a support.

Position

Defines the position of the anchor point along the direction of the thickness of the plate.

  • Face: Depending on the web orientation of the stiffener, the anchor point is placed at one or the other face of the plate which is set as reference.

  • Neutral: The anchor point is placed at the half thickness of the plate which is set as reference.

Limits

You can specify start and end limits to the stiffeners. For more information about limits, see About Profile Limits.

Next Solution

The Next Solution button is available only when there are multiple possible solutions for the selected limits and support. It lets you switch from one solution to the next.



Possible solutions: S1-E1, S1-E2, S2-E1, S2-E2
S: Start limit, E: End limit

The solutions are computed considering the orientation of the delimited trace. You can click Swap Limits to swap the limits and thus to invert the orientation of the trace.

Recommendation: Use this functionality only when you have selected a common limiting element for start and end limits, as shown in the above image.

Orientation

You can orient the stiffener as explained below:

Web Orientation and Flange Orientation
You can Flip the Web Orientation and Flange Orientation to get the correct orientation.
Web Orientation (Normal) Web Orientation (Invert)




Flange Orientation (Normal) Flange Orientation (Invert)




Anchor Point and Anchor Point Offset

The anchor points displayed in the Anchor Point box are defined in the molded convention resource that is set in Data Setup. If no molded convention resource is set in Data Setup, the default list of anchor points will be available.

Anchor point offset allows you to modify the location of the anchor point of a face plate stiffener.

Changing the offset value moves the stiffener more to one side or the other. The images below show a stiffener that is not offset (left) and one that has been offset.

A stiffener with zero offset.

A stiffener with offset.