You can bend it into whatever shape you want using the Deform tool. Draw the grid in the flat form, then make one sketch of a straight line and one of a curvy line, and you can use the Deform tool to map the body from one shape to another. You can even do 3D transformations rather than just the uniform 2D extrusion, like I did here:
Sheet Metal? Make the initial shape and make sure the bends are parts of circles instead of a spline. Convert to Sheet Metal and make the default bend radius match the circles. Then flatten, create the cutouts, and rebend.
Then repeat the process for the other parts, reusing the sketch for the cutouts, or offset it for the covers/inside.
For manufacturing, depends on the material but again, sheet metal should be relatively easy. Stamp out the cutouts or use a laser. If the curves are a common size, get a column of material that thick, heat up the parts and wrap them around the column.
My quick, kneejerk response would be to use a couple of projected curves to create two undulating 3D curves - one that zigs left and the other that zags right.
Sweep your center spine as a pair of surfaces along them. The profile sketch should be a line whose midpoint pierces the end of the 3D curves.
Sweep another line, sketch perpendicular to the first profile sketch line, along the front edge of each surface, and do the same for the back edge of each surface.
Midplane thicken the two spine surfaces and thicken the front and back surfaces in the opposite direction.
Use Combine to fuse everything together in the manner/combo that you see fit.
EDIT - I forgot to include that you lastly Pattern the result(s) to form the full mesh.
Depends if you want a 'looks like' model or a 'works like' model.
For looks-like, extrude the S from the side as a sandwich of three bodies, wrap the pattern on one face and use that to cut through the 'bread,' wrap the larger diamond pattern on the same face and use that to cut the meat, then combine the bodies using your favorite body-joining feature.
Looks-like vs works-like here basically comes down to whether the cutouts are perpendicular to all of the exterior faces vs just the flat ones.
Your computer will hate you, but model a single
I-Beam that follows that curve using a sweep pattern (project curve is a great tool to make the path), make sure it extends past the length you want the final part to be. Linear pattern the body in a single axis with the spacing you want (once again male more than needed). Ideally do this pattern so it grows in both directions of the axis keeping your first body centered on a plane. Once you have the pattern mirror all bodies across that center plane. Then you can just do an extrude cut from the side and top to trim all bodies at once to the right size. Finish with a combine function to make the remaining bodies a single body.
Project curve, you can use two sketches on say the top and right plane and it will create the projected intersection of them. Then in your sweep feature I think there should be a way to keep the sweep profile normal to the starting position
Why would you use a beam? That just adds more surfaces to render. If you're going to go the profile sweep route, create a plane that's normal to the end point of the sweep path and draw a square or rectangle and sweep that.
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u/mechy18 1d ago
You can bend it into whatever shape you want using the Deform tool. Draw the grid in the flat form, then make one sketch of a straight line and one of a curvy line, and you can use the Deform tool to map the body from one shape to another. You can even do 3D transformations rather than just the uniform 2D extrusion, like I did here: