Common Ways in Solidworks on How to Make a Sphere

Solidworks on How to Make a Sphere
Solidworks on How to Make a Sphere

Making a sphere using Solidworks may appear to be quite difficult if you are a complete newbie. We’ll demonstrate to you today how easy it is to make a sphere in Solidworks by following a few basic steps. In SolidWorks, a sphere may be produced using just one drawing and one feature.

The possibilities for making a sphere, the guidelines to follow, and the necessary actions are covered in this post. In SolidWorks, spheres may be generated as surface geometry or as solid geometry. A drawing and either a Revolve Boss/Base feature or a Revolved Surface feature are necessary for both outcomes.

The Revolve Boss/Base feature produces solid geometry with mass when a sphere is created. The Revolved Surface feature produces a sphere with a surface geometry that is endlessly thin and devoid of mass.

Common Ways in Solidworks on How to Make a Sphere

Start by making a new part.

Make new part

Select the front plane and then make a new sketch. We’re going to do a sketch on the front plane right now using the Arc and Line commands. Making the origin the center of your drawings is a good practice since it will simplify your job if you are creating complex drawings.

On a plane, draw a line using the Line tool. Applying the following constraints will appropriately confine the line (in this example, the construction line option was chosen). Add the Midpoint relation between the line and coordinate system center.

Add the vertical to the line. This guarantees that the line is vertical. This is how the line appears once the constraints have been applied.

Draw line using line tool on a plane

Draw a circle with the coordinate system as its center.

Draw circle with coordinates system as its center

Trim one half of the circle with the Trim Entities command. Only the centerline and the remaining half of the circle will be visible.

Trim half of the circle with trim entities command

In order to explain what we like to refer to as your “design intent,” you should definitely add certain dimensions as a matter of best practice. This effectively implies, in the context of this example, that if the desired diameter/radius of this sphere is 150mm, then make that change at the drawing level.

150mm diameter or radius of sphere

Utilize the Revolved Boss/Base command found in the Features toolbar. When the following pop-up notice appears, you just click Yes.

Features toolbar revolved boss/base command

A 360° rotation of the arc around the centerline is an option provided by the Revolve command. As a result, a solid model will be produced. The sphere/inside ball won’t be hollow.

Solid model with 360degree arc around centerline

Let’s move on to another key idea in SOLIDWORKS CAD modeling while we’re still discussing spheres. There are forms that are frequently hollow and those that are frequently filled. So, how do we communicate our intentions to SOLIDWORKS while drawing our forms and carrying out revolve operations?

We have a whole sphere in the example shown above. The inside is not hollow. After a form has been made, there are a few techniques to hollow it out. While creating the shape, you do have control over this, though. If you wish to have a hollow inside, you may create another sketch drawing.

Create a center line first, then add constraints like we did before. After that, create a circle with the diameter or radius that your intended sphere would have. Simply create an inner offset of the larger circle to create a second circle within the first one. Your offset distance must be equal to the hollow sphere’s thickness.

Center line with circle with the diameter or radius

Trim the sketch into halves, then draw a line to seal the spaces between them. Make sure your final sketch resembles the one below.

Trim sketch into halves

Next, you execute the Revolve command.

Execute revolve command

You may use tools like Thickness Analysis to confirm your results (under the Evaluate tab on the Command Manager). Use the Section View tool to view the cross-section of your new form if all you want to see is a visual of the hollow spherical.

Thickness analysis tool under evaluate tab command manager