Design & Manufacture 2

Basic parts for CAD drawing of bicycle

Stuart Burgess
This document presents some simple parts for the CAD modelling of a bicycle.
Once the parts are made they can be assembled as shown below. Try to make
quick progress by doing the simple parts first (ex. handle bars and saddle).
For your assembly, you need to decide what you are grounding. It is usual to
ground the frame. This can be done by right clicking on the frame and selecting
grounded. After grounding the frame you can then turn the wheels and turn
the handle bars. Note that if you have a simple solid chain then this may
restrict the amount you can turn the rear wheel and pedals. It is advisable to
add the chain last of all.

Note that by constraining the [handle bars + forks + front wheel] in an angular
sense, they then turn relative to the bike frame. You should show your bike at
different amounts of handle bar turn to show that you got the steering
working in CAD.
FRONT FORKS
The front forks can be produced by firstly extruding the main post and the
cross bar. Then one of the two forks can be produced using the loft
command and using three sketch planes with three circles. The forks below are
slightly tapered because the circles were progressively smaller. The forks are
bent because the circles were offset to each other (note the position of the
working planes below). After creating one fork, the second was produced using
the mirror command. Finally, a lug was produced by extruding a tube at the
end of one fork. This was then mirrored.
CRANK
The pedal arm can be produced by extruding a tube and then extruding a
rectangle at right angles to the tube. The rounded ends and hole were added
by extrusion.

PEDALS
The pedal was produced by extruding a large rectangle. A bar was extruded at
one end to fit the pedal crank. Two cut-outs were extruded. The fillet
command was used to round the edges.
HANDLE BARS
The handle bars were produced by firstly extruding the tube that connects to
the frame. Then a plane was made visible in order to extrude a tube at right
angles. This technique was repeated to produce the long handle bars. Note
that it is convenient to sometimes use the extrude both ways command. In
fact, it is also sometimes helpful to use the asymmetrical command to extrude
by different distances. The red handles were produced by extruding yet
another cylinder and making a red colour (using iproperties).