Advanced Sheet Metal Design Using NX Cad Challenge_6_Bracket

SHEET METAL BRACKET DESIGN

OBJECTIVE

To design a sheet metal bracket using Siemens NX CAD.

INTRODUCTION

Sheet Metal is metal formed by an industrial process into thin, flat pieces. Sheet metal is one of the fundamental forms used in metalworking, and it can be cut and bent into a variety of shapes. Countless everyday objects are fabricated from sheet metal. Thicknesses can vary significantly; extremely thin sheets are considered foil or leaf, and pieces thicker than 6mm (0.25in) are considered plate steel.

Sheet metal is used in automobile and truck (lorry) bodies, airplane fuselages and wings, medical tables, roofs for buildings (architecture), and many other applications.

Sheet metal forming can be used in different industrial areas. Various computer-controlled manufacturing processes are used. These manufacturing processes are optimally adapted to the different materials, material thicknesses and other important factors.

Sheet metal forming is suitable for almost all manufacturing industries: The automotive industry uses it to produce heavy-duty body parts such as fenders, hoods and vehicle doors. The food industry uses cans that are made with the help of forming technology. It can also be used to manufacture components such as wings and propellers for the aerospace industry. Suppliers of household appliances also benefit from the various sheet metal forming processes. They use the finished sheet metal parts in their kitchen hoods, sinks and freezers. In addition, sheet metal forming is used in apparatus construction, plant construction, electrical, pharmaceutical, medical, measurement and control technology, among others. Ventilation, air conditioning and communications technology also use these methods.

There are many different metals that can be made into sheet metal, such as aluminium, brass, copper, steel, tin, nickel and titanium. For decorative uses, some important sheet metals include silver, gold, and platinum (platinum sheet metal is also utilized as a catalyst).

DESIGN METHODOLOGY

FEATURE DESCRIPTION

SKETCH

The sketch is the fundamental base element for any feature in the design of any sheet metal component. Most of the features require a sketch.

CONTOUR FLANGE

This feature creates a base feature by extruding a sketch along a vector, or adds material by sweeping a sketch along an edge or chain of edges.

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.

• Activate the “Normal Cutout” command.
• “Select Curve” in the “Section” tab will be highlighted automatically. Select a curve to extract.

BREAK CORNER

Break corner and chamfer tools are used to make some changes over sheet metal body. Rounds or chamfers a sharp corner of a tab or flange. Bend:completely formed with radius and creates smooth edges.

UNBEND

It’s an command used to flatten the created 3d model taking one face as a stationary face.This feature is used to unbend the adjacent bends and flatten them. Here it is used to create more features. This command is used to unbend the sheet metal parts to create geometries and work on complicated designs. In this command, we have to select a stationary face and then select the corners of flanges to unbend.

BEAD

It is also type of projection to deform the shape at a certain point with reference to sketch and also giving strength to the material.

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 position

REBEND

Restores an unbend feature to its previous bent state, along with any features added after the unbend feature.

HOLES

It adds a hole to one or more solid bodies in a part or an asembly with options for counterbored, countersunk and threaded. Here six simple holes are created on the unbent surface with a diameter of 10mm. It can be used to make customized or standardized holes along with a defined point or path. The dept of the hole can be controlled.

LOCAL RADIUS

This tool calculates geometric properties of selected points on curves, edges, and faces.

MEASURE DISTANCE

This feature calculates the distance between two objects, the length of curves , or the radius of an arc, circular edge, or cylindrical face.

FLAT PATTERN

It creates a flat pattern feature from the formed sheet metal part. The user chooses this command to create a flat view of the sheet metal after unbending all the sides and faces. This view can be used in drawing the flat pattern along with the bend radius and other dimensions.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.

DRAFTING

After the design is complete, the execution or the manufacturing of the component requires a technical drawing of the component with the provided scale and with accuracy.

VIEWS

CONCLUSION

SHEET METAL BRACKET is designed and a draft is created using Siemens NX .