Molded side placement for shell frames

When creating a shell frame, it is possible to choose how the shell frame is aligned with the construction item that is located on the other side of the plate. The alignment is by the molded line.

By default the shell frame's molded line is on its molded side (red line in the left side picture below). Alignment to the other construction item can be changed by placing the molded line on the shell frame's thickness side (full thickness or base width; red line in the right side picture below). The molded line can also be placed at the midpoint of the shell frame thickness or base width.

The placement of the molded line can be set with the Molded side placement setting in the Create Shell Frame dialog.

The available options are:

  • Default – Molded line on the molded side.

  • Center – Molded line at the midpoint of the shell frame thickness or base width.

  • Base width – Molded line on the thickness side (at full thickness or base width).

The molded side placement is always applied perpendicular to the shell frame's local plane:

Note: Changing the molded side placement is not available for user defined profile types. Molded line is always placed on the molded side (Default setting).

Rotated shell frames

If a shell frame is rotated, the calculation is always done at the molded side of the shell frame. This means that the shift of working plane is ignored. The rotation point is always around the base line of the profile at the molded side.

If the molded side placement has been set to Center or Base width, the shell frame is shifted at each point over half of its thickness/full thickness, perpendicular to the local plane, opposite to the thickness direction.

Below is an example of a rotated shell frame that has the Molded side placement set to Base width (at full thickness):

3D-Item Information

If the Molded side placement of a shell frame has been set to Center or Base width, the Geometry tab in the 3D-Item Information function shows which molded side placement type has been applied:

When set to Default, no molded side placement information is shown.