T-FLEX Parametric CAD. Fundamentals. 2D Design

Creating a Database
Creating Libraries of Parametric Elements
At the step, you need to create an internal database to pick the values from.
First, you need to decide, which will be the driving parameter. In our case, the candidate parameter is the bolt
thread diameter. Therefore, the bolt diameter is entered in the first column, followed by all the rest of the
parameters (except the length). The names of the database columns (and the database itself) should be made
descriptive, so that later, when creating variables, you could easily remember which column relates to which
parameter. However, too long column names are not recommended either. A good strategy is to name the
columns according to engineering standard notations adopted in your industry. In our example, the thread
diameter is named d, the bolt head size - S, etc.
In our example, the input bolt length must be rounded to the nearest
standard length. We should also account for the fact that the set of standard
lengths is different for each diameter. For example, the bolt diameter of 6
mm corresponds with the length of 22 mm, while the bolts 12 mm in
diameter have minimum length of 32 mm. Besides, depending on the
selected bolt length, two additional parameters are defined: l1 and l0. We
recommend creating separate databases of lengths for each diameter. The
suggested database names are l6, l8, etc. The letter l, as in “length”, refers to
the databases of lengths, while the number stands for the respective
diameter.
Once the databases are created, proceed to the next step.
Creating Variables Relying on Databases
At this step, we need to create variables that would be used for building the parametric drawing and the 3D
model. We recommend using descriptive names for the variables.
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