Advanced Sheet Metal Design Using NX Cad Challenge_5_Odd Shaped Enclosure

ODD SHAPED ENCLOSURE DESIGN USING SIEMENS NX

OBJECTIVE:

• Learn to design a sheet metal odd shaped enclosure in an industrial manner.

INTRODUCTION:

• Sheet metal parts are widely used in machinery, enclosure, brackets, and automobiles due to its various advantages.
• The parts are normally manufactured with brake presses.
• Sheet metal is nothing but the thin sheets made from metal of size ranging from 0.5 to 6mm.
• In this project I used the NX CAD tool for designing the sheet metal bracket.NX CAD is used as a design tool in more than 85% of the sheet metal industries.

DESIGN METHODOLOGY:

• Simple and easy design methodology is followed during this project; the only thing is that we have to just keep an eye on the order of unbending and rebending the casing.
• The design methodology used for this project is summarized in the flowchart below.

DESCRIPTION:

Sketch:

• For creating any sheet metal surface, we have to first make a sketch.
• So, I started with creating a simple base sketch for creating the extrude.
• Other than extrude, various sketches are also made on different planes or faces for creating other different parts during designing.

Extrude:

• This is the main feature for converting a 2d sketch into a 3d model. While extrusion material is added to the sketch.

Convert to sheet metal:

• This feature is used to create a sheet metal model from a generic solid body by ripping edges, cleaning up geometry and converting to a sheet metal body.
• First, I selected 5 faces out of 6 in the select web face section and then selected 4 edges in the select bend edge and created the sheet metal body.

Flange:

• Flange is used to add extra material to the existing edge at any angle and of any size.
• For this project of odd shaped enclosure design, I added a full flange having parameters of 20 mm length with material inside the reference edge.

Jog:

• Jog feature is used to modify the model by lifting material on one side of the line, adding a flange between two sides.
• First, I created a line sketch for the jog line and then I created a jog with a height of 20mm.

Unbend:

• The Unbend feature is one of the most powerful features in the NX.
• In industry we have to mark all the markings and sketches on flat sheet metal before it goes to actual operations, so this unbend feature allows us to do that activity in Siemens NX software.
• For this project of odd shaped enclosure design, I used this feature by selecting the upper face as a stationary face.

Bead:

• Bead has a similar feature like dimple.
• The only difference is that by using dimples we lift an area while in bed we lift the contour of the sketch.
• It also added to strengthen the component.
• For this project, two beads are applied in the position as shown in the image below.

Hole:

• Hole feature is used to generate holes with definite parameters on sheet metal in Siemens NX.
• We can create different types of holes using this feature, in this project I mainly used simple screw clearance holes.
• I first sketched 6 location points and then the whole feature is applied to all 6 points.

Rebend:

• Rebend feature is used to restore the unbend feature to its previous bent state along with any features added after the unbend feature.
• This is done by using the rebend feature and selecting all the bends carefully in order they unbended.

Flat Pattern:

• Flat pattern feature allows us to convert 3D sheet metal components into 2D form in Siemens NX software.
• By using this flat pattern feature we can easily avoid error like interference or collision.

Drafting:

• After designing a 3-d model for further process of manufacturing we have to convert the entire sheet metal component into 2D form for easy interpretation.
• For this project of odd shaped enclosure design a drawing is created out of the flat pattern in 1:5 scale in A4 size.

FUTURE TREE :

MODEL VIEWS :

TOP

FRONT

LEFT

RIGHT

BOTTOM

ISOMETRIC

MODEL FILE LINK :

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JBKS4MssyBwPreSBn9qruZmxwzXAVwwY?usp=sharing

CONCLUSION:

• Successfully learned to design an odd shaped enclosure in an industrial manner by using Siemens NX.
• Become comfortable with using environment of Siemens NX.