Thruster Tube

The thruster tube will be added to the container design, which can be found in the Container project.

This shows two existing thruster tubes. To create a further tube, we require to insert a cylinder through the hull and provide a faired inlet.

Create a Thruster Tube

1. First, create the inner cylinder by clicking on the Surface Cylinder icon.

   The Cylinder dialog opens.

2. Enter the Length, Radius and Rotation Angle of the cylinder:

   

3. Clicking on OK will create a cylinder at the origin. To place it at the correct position, we need to rotate it so that it is parallel to the Y axis and to move it such that its axis is at X=175.2 and Z=2.75. This is accomplished by clicking on the Rotate icon, followed by the Translate icon. Each will display a dialog in which is entered the required movement.

   

4. We now need to find the intersection curve where the cylinder intersects the hull. Click on the Intersect icon, select the hull first then the cylinder.

   The resultant display should be:

   

5. We now wish to create another cylinder which is slightly bigger to define the outer edge of the fairing to the thruster tube. This is effected in exactly the same way as before, except that the cylinder radius is 1.55. Again, intersect the hull with the outer cylinder as above

6. To create the fairing plate, the intersection line AFOB2 is moved inboard to form the inner edge of the fairing plate and AFOB3 is moved outboard by 0.1mm to ensure an intersection when the thruster assembly is finally integrated into the hull.

7. To effect these translations, set the translation values in the translate dialog and drag the curve AFOB2 from the tree onto the Translate button (see below).

   

8. By default, values entered into dialogs are truncated to three decimal places. To increase this, select TOOLS \ OPTIONS, and on the Units page set Decimal Places to 4. Now, enter the value 0.0001 into the translate dialog dy value and drag curve AFOB3 from the tree onto the Translate button.

9. The outer cylinder is no longer needed, therefore it can be deleted. Right click on CYL1 in the tree and select DELETE.

10. To create the fairing plate, we need to create a surface between the inner and outer intersection curves. Select SURFACES \ INTERPOLATED \ FORMED then click on the inner curve followed by the outer curve then click the space bar to terminate the selections. Turn off layer 100 and render the view.

    

11. The order of selection of the intersection curves is important as this controls the surface normal of the formed surface. The direction of the normal controls the result of the Unite function that will be applied in the next step to create the thruster tube and fairing plate assembly.

12. Click on the Unite icon and select the cylinder followed by the formed patch.

    

13. Select an isometric view and switch on layer 100. Rotate the view so that you are looking from the inside of the hull.

    

14. Click on the Subtract icon and select the hull followed by the thruster.

15. Rotate the view so that you are looking from the outside of the hull and render the view.