Sheet Metal Designing Of an Odd Shaped Enclosure Using Siemens NX Cad
ODD SHAPED ENCLOSURE DESIGN USING SIEMENS NX
OBJECTIVE
To create a Sheet Metal Odd shaped Enclosure using Siemen NX cad software and there by Develop a sustainable Knowledge in the Sheet Metal designing
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 od an Odd shaped Enclosure using the software Siemens NX
DESIGN METHODOLOGY
The Enclosure designed for this project is made by converting a Solid body in to a Sheet Metal structure using the feature Sheet Metal from Solid. 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
- Extrude
- Sheet Metal from Solid
- Flange
- Jog
- Unbend
- Beads
- Holes
- Rebend
- Flat Pattern
- Draft
All the commands are explained with pictures in the Description
DESCRIPTION
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
As shown create a base sketch
Extrude
Extrude is the command used to create a 3Dimensional body from a 2Dimensional sketch by adding thickness to the sketch in the third dimension
Extrude to a thickness of 200 mm
Sheet Metal from Solid
It is a powerful and very useful command used in NX to create a Sheet Metal structure from a dumb Solid body by wrapping Sheet Metal over the solid body. For performing this command we need to select Web faces as well as the Edges to Bend .
Convert to SM by using Sheet Metal from Solid feature.For the web faces select all the faces Except bottom face and For bends select the Four edges of the top face
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
Create a flange from the one edge with alength 20 mm as shown in th picture
Jog
It is the feature used to Lifts one side of the sheet metal part through a defined line. It Ads flange between the stationary side and the lifted side.
Sketch a cross lne and create a Jog
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.
Un bend the model by selecting the fixed face and the bends
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.
Sketch two line as shown and create two Beads witha depth and radius of 3 mm
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
Create five points on the sketch as in the picture and create General holes through thr body with a diameter 10 mm
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.
Do a rebend
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.
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.
Draft image of the Enclosure is shown below
- Draft inage of the Flat Pattern
- Draft Image of different Standard views
Some Additional views of the created Odd shaped Enclosure
CONCLUSION
Odd shaped Enclosure is created with proper scales and required images are Drafted.