Sheet Metal Casing Design Using Siemens NX Cad
SHEET METAL CASING DESIGN USING SIEMENS NX
OBJECTIVE
Create a Sheet Metal Casing design using Siemen NX cad software and there by learn the Sheet Metal design process
INTRODUCTION
Sheet metal is one of the most versatile materials in the manufacturing industry. It’s made from steel, aluminum, brass, copper, tin, nickel, titanium, or precious metals. It ranges in thickness from wispy leaf through light foil to heavy plate. It takes a variety of forms: plain flat sheets, embossed, etched, ribbed, corrugated, and perforated. And its uses expand across many different industries including transportation, aerospace, appliance manufacturing, consumer electronics, industrial furniture, machinery, and more.
Sheet metal components can have deceptively complex manufacturing processes and the design process itself can be similarly tricky. CAD softwares such as Siemens NX cad ,SOLIDWORKS etc. are used to design the complex Sheet Metal components .
Sheet metal design software considers the fabrication methods needed for manufacturing. As you create flanges and add bends, the sheet metal design software will accurately represent the flat pattern required. The flat pattern can be used to document and manufacture associatively as the design changes.
Here in this project we are dealing with the Sheet metal designing using the software Siemens Nx cad
DESIGN METHODOLOGY
The casing designed for this project consists of features like cut-outs, bends, flanges, holes, dimples, and beads. Every feature is designed in an order following the industrial procedure to keep the design intent. The design methodology used for this project can be summarized as depicted in the flowchart below:
COMMANDS USED
- Sketch
- Tab
- Normal Cut Out
- Bend
- Flange
- Break Corner
- Unbend
- Hole
- Dimple
- Bead
- Rebend
- Flat Pattern
- Draft
All the commands are explained with pictures in the Description
DESCRIPTION
1) Sketch
Sketches are the basic element or we can say the foundation of a design model. A base sketch is needed to perform most of the operations in Sheet Metal designing including Tab , Dimple , Bead , Hole , Contour Flange etc. The sketches can be created using the various sketch tools provided top left corner of the interface
Here we are drawing a rectangle od 60mm length and 50mm width
2) Tab
Normally tabs are the Basic feature in NX sheet metal designing process. Tab Command extrude a sketch along a vector by a thickness value or by adding material to existing face and bend regions of a sheet metal part
A one mm tab is extruded here as the base feature of casing design
3) Normal Cut Out
Normal Cutout command extract volumes from sheet metal by using sheet metal production principles. Cutting faces will be perpendicular to the sheet metal surface
Using this command a cut out is performed at one side of the Tab using a rectangle sketch of 40 mm length and 5 mm width.
4) Bend
Bend feature is added wherever a bend in the sheet metal component is required. it may be at any position or at any angle. a sketch is required to create a bend. it can be an open profile and it can be either a straight line or a curve. for this project of casing design, two straight lines symmetric with respect to x-axis are drawn for the bending curve.
As shown in the figure Both sides of the tab are bended at a length of 10 mm and 1 mm bend radius
5) Flange
A flange feature consists of a face and bend connected to an existing face along a straight edge. To add a flange feature, we select one or more edges, and specify the size and position of the material added.
Four flanges are made on the two sides of the casing ‘Two towards inside and the others towards out side’ with a length of 5 mm
6) Break Corner
Break Corner is the command used to round the sharp edges with user specified radius.
7) Unbend
Use the Unbend tool to unbend one or more curved surfaces such as Bends or Curved walls to a flat configuration in a Sheet Metal part .For performing a Unbend feature its must to define a fixed planar face or edge. We can either select bend geometry individually or automatically select all the bend geometry.
Here we are performing unbend command by Box selecting all the bend geometry.
8) Hole
Hole feature in sheet metal design workbench is just like in the model workbench. It can create either simple or counterbore or countersink or tapped holes. For this casing, first, the four points are sketched symmetric to the x-axis in position and the hole feature is applied
Using Hole command four Screw clearance of m12 is created as in the diagram
9) Dimple
Use this command to create a raised dimple feature in a sheet metal part. The dimples can be placed on any flat face including flanges and will extend in the direction of the face. The dimple feature will be governed by the settings defined in the Options Form. Dimple also helps the sheet meatal part to increase its stiffness
A sketch is created as in the picture using sketching tools and create a dimple with 1 mm depth and rounding its edges with 1mm punch radius.
10) Bead
Beads are the features added in sheet metal components in order to increase the stiffness of the component. Beads require a sketch in order to apply the feature. It can be either an open or closed profile. For this casing design project, four small beads are applied in the symmetric positions as shown in the image below.
Two dimples are created using circles of 15 mm and mirrored it to the opposite corners as in the picture.
11) Rebend
Command use to re bend the un bended parts along with the feature applied after the Unbend. After addition sketches and features the sheet metal is to be re bended to its required shape. This operation is done by box selecting all the features and clicking the ReBend command.
ReBend operation is performed
12) Flat Pattern
Flat pattern is the representation of the entire sheet metal component in the 2D form with all the bends, cut-outs, holes, and additional features in the form of lines or edges. The flat pattern ensures the ability to cut the sheet metal out of the raw sheet metal plate. It removes the possible errors such as interference or collision within the same component.
13) Draft
After the modelling ,the manufacturing of the component a technical 2D drawing of the component with accurate dimensions or scales denoted. For achieving this we are using the command Draft.
Here a draft is created with a scale 2:1 and using a4 size
DIFFERENT VIEWS OF CASING DESIGN MODEL
ViewModel:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P2bB3Jmsq_Kw-u1MPZGZXD3AxS6syplj/view?usp=sharing
CONCLUSION
Sheet metal casing design is done with accurate scaling and following the industrial workflow