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      <title>Flange best practices</title>
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      <div class="title_topic3" id="xps10_pagetitle">Flange best practices</div>
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               <p class="para_td"><a class="links" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="top.openFile('sheetmetaldes/smfea_flng.html');return(false);">Flange Overview</a></p>
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            <p class="para_item"><b class="uiTerm">Flange</b> allows the use of expressions to determine its width and thickness. If you do this you must position the flange using RPOs. You may use any valid RPO method, but the flange must be totally <b class="uiTerm">Positional Constrained</b>.
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            <p class="para_item">When you change the <b class="uiTerm">Width</b> option from<b class="uiTerm"> Infer from Edge to Use Expression</b> you must completely constrain the flange. If you do not totally constrain an attached flange to a block you might not encounter a problem. If you place a flange on another flange and do not totally constrain this flange problems will occur when you <b class="uiTerm">Form/Unform</b> the flanges. The flange that is attached to the first flange will not be able to follow is parent, the flange, during a <b class="uiTerm">Form/Unform</b>.
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            <p class="para_item">When applying a taper to the side of the flange a positive number tapers into the flange, or removes material, and a negative number tapers away from the flange, or adds material.</p>
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            <p class="para_item">The two methods to determine the length of the flange are <b class="uiTerm">Tangent</b> and <b class="uiTerm">Contour</b>. The tangent length is the length of the web of the <b class="uiTerm">Flange</b> feature. The <b class="uiTerm">Contour</b> length is measured from the intersection of a plane extended from the outside face of the feature the attached flange and a plane extending from the outside of the web to the bottom of the web.
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            <p class="para_item">If you define the length of the flange using <b class="uiTerm">Contour</b> then the flange's angle cannot be 180&deg; as the theoretical intersection becomes infinite.
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            <p class="para_item">There is an option to create <b class="uiTerm">Contour</b>, <b class="uiTerm">Mold</b>, and<b class="uiTerm"> Form Block</b> lines. You can use these lines on a drawing for dimensioning or they can be passed to the <b class="uiTerm">Flat Pattern</b>.
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            <p class="para_item">You must select an edge when you are constructing the flange. The edge you are allowed to select the must be linear and attached to two planar faces. The edge you select will determine the bend direction. The software will select a planar face to attach the flange. If the planar face that highlights is the wrong face, simply select <b class="uiTerm">Adjacent Face</b> and the system will select the other planar face.
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            <p class="para_item">Do not change the length of the bend face of a flange by adding a feature, such as an extrude to the face. If you do this you will not be able to get a bend center line or bend tangent lines created in a flat pattern by the flange. The best way to lengthen the bend face would be to create the flange to wide and use a sheet metal cutout to trim the flange to the proper length.</p>
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            <p class="para_item">The <b class="uiTerm">Flange</b> feature maybe Instanced, but with a limitation. The<b class="uiTerm"> Instanced/Mirrored</b> flange will not be formed/unformed by itself only when its parent is formed/unformed. This might cause a problem if the manufacturing process calls for one flange to be form before the other. If the manufacturing process calls for both flanges to form at the same time then the mirroring of the flange will work fine. The figure below is an example of a part where you formed all of the flanges at the same time when manufactured.
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            <p class="para_item">The figure below shows a model that the instancing of the flanges may not work, because to illustrate the manufacturing process requires the flanges to unform independently of each other.</p>
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