Inventor 2011 - Multi-bodied Solids

by Clint Brown

Over the last couple of weeks we have really seen an increase in support calls where customers have had the need to do some pretty complex modelling, that would be impossible by traditional techniques. In a lot of these cases we have suggested that they tackle the job using multi-bodied solids.

Multi-bodied solids were introduced to Inventor in the 2010 release, and give the user the ability to create single parts and then split them into multiple solids, handy for plastic part design, where you may want a complex shape to a lid for instance. You can also create individual features as solids, this gives you the ability to create containers or vessels, and have additional solids to simulates the volume for instance, in fact there are many uses for the multi-bodied solid.

So where do you get started one may ask, well the good news is that Cadline Community is teaming with information on the subject, see the following videos:

Chris Turner’s master class on the ‘Fundamentals of Multi-bodied Solids’ (this is a previous Inventor Live! Session) (37 Minutes long) 

Calculating volume of a shape with an undercut: (4 Minutes long) 

Using the split tool to create Multi-bodied solids: (2.5 Minutes long) 

This was a really action packed Blog entry, enjoy the content, and I look forward to a few comments!