thefourbooleanoperations(draft1,31006)-riceuniversity.docVIP

The Four Boolean Operations (draft 1, 3/10/06) Introduction SolidWorks frequently employs Boolean operations when building solid bodies. Commands like Extrude, Cut, Loft, Loft Cut, etc frequently perform Boolean operations, but do not state them in that context. For more complicated shapes sometimes one needs to specific commands available when the above standard commands can not easily build the part you need. SolidWorks refers to them as “Combine” operations and names them common, add, and subtract, respectively. The corresponding Boolean operations of intersection and union are commutative (that is, the order of selection of the two bodies does not matter). However, the difference operation is not commutative and can be utilized in two ways. Therefore, this demonstration will illustrate using all four ways. It is common to have to use those operations. However, SolidWorks makes them quite hard to find by not including the word “Boolean” anywhere in its massive on-line help file. The help file does have an image of the results from the four combine operations. But it does not give a tutorial on the numerous steps needed to get the parts together, mate them in the desired positions, and to finally carry out the Boolean operation. This demonstration will do that. Basically, at a minimum you should have at lease two original parts created and saved as parts. (Alternatively, you could create two solid parts in a single part file.) Then one of the parts is opened and another is inserted to form a new “multipart” (which is found in the Help file). That is not an assembly. In this example, one body will be an elliptical extrusion of one thickness, and a brick with a different thickness. They are shown in Figure 1. The steps to create each body are given in Appendices A and B, respectively at the end of this document. The back center point of the ellipse will be combined with a lower back corner of the brick. The same resultant shape could be crea