Fast Structure
The Fast Structure tab builds welded frames (weldments) from standard steel profiles: Structural Member, Trim/Extend, End Cap, Gusset, Weld Bead and Cut List. It also has a 3D Sketch button, since frames are often laid out in 3D.
Structural Member
Pick a profile and a sketch or 3D sketch: every line and arc of it becomes a member, each its own body named after its profile. Add more sketches to the Path list for a frame in 3D, for example the top of a table and its legs; the joints between them are treated too. Arcs, and the bends of a 3D sketch with a bend radius, become bent members.
| Profile | Types |
|---|---|
| Hollow sections | Square (SHS), rectangular (RHS), circular (CHS / pipe) |
| Angles | Equal and unequal angle |
| Channels and beams | Channel (PFC / UPN); I-beam (UB, UC, IPE, HEA) |
| Bars | Flat bar, round bar |
Sizes come from AS/NZS or EN/ISO tables, or enter your own dimensions.
- Corners where two members meet end to end: Mitre, Butt (first or second member trimmed) or None (members meet at the sketch points). Trimmed ends: square cut on the face, or coped to the other member's outside.
- A member ending on the middle of another (a T-joint), or under a corner (a table leg), is trimmed to it, square on its face. Pipes and round bars are always coped (fish-mouthed).
- Alignment: which point of the profile the sketch line runs through (centre, corners or edges), a profile rotation, and mirror.
Trim/Extend
Click the members to trim on the model, then the boundary: a plane or another body. Each member is trimmed (or, with Extend members that stop short of it, extended) at its end nearer the boundary, either cut square on the boundary's face or coped to the boundary body.
End Cap
Click the open end faces of tubes or pipes. A plate of the set thickness is added on the end (outside) or in the end (flush).
Gusset
Click two flat faces that meet at a corner, one on each member. A triangular plate fills the corner. Set the two leg lengths, the thickness, a corner chamfer for weld clearance, and where the plate sits along the corner (centred or to one side, plus an offset).
End caps and gussets are bodies of their own, named by size for the cut list.
Weld Bead
Set the weld size and click the bodies to weld (none: every weldment member). A bead runs along every line where two of them touch; each joint is its own bead body.
Cut List
Cut List lists identical members together, with their profile, length, end angles, quantity, total length and mass (from the bodies' materials), then plates and welds (with the total weld length). It also gives the total length of each profile. Export CSV… saves it for a spreadsheet. A drawing can show it as a Cut List Table (Drawings chapter).