Advanced Sheet Metal Design Using NX Cad_Switch Box

Objective :

The Main aim of this project is to design sheet metal Switch Board using Siemens NX Sheet Metal Application.

Software Used :

Siemens NX 12

Introduction :

NX Sheet Metal provides a set of tools within the NX design environment that allows for simple and fast design of sheet metal parts, dependent on their material and manufacturing process. With NX Sheet Metal, formed and unformed representations of the parts are created closely following the industry workflows and best practices for bending calculations, tooling, and sheet metal features.

Sheet Metal is a metal with a small thickness ranging from 1-3 mm which is made thin and flat by rolling or hammering process. A number of mechanical components are made up of Sheet Metal. Sheet metal is widely used in the manufacturing industry due to its various advantages. In this project, sheet metal is designed in Siemens NX CAD software following the industrial approach. The use of a parametric modeling environment is the main use made in this project.

Design Methodology Flow chart :

Features Used :

• 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. The very first step is to sketch which is then used to create a tab or the base feature. So, the first sketch can be called a base sketch. For other features which are the children features of the tab, the sketch may require again on a particular plane or a face.

• Tab: The tab is the very first feature in any sheet metal component design process. All the other features of the sheet metal in Siemens NX are based on the base feature or tab. A tab is created after a sketch is created in any of the planes or datum plane created. The tab is always the parent feature for other features following it. In this casing design, the tab is created after a simple sketch in the XY plane.

• Flange: The flange is an additional face created automatically from any edge of the existing sheet metal component. It is additional material connected to any face or edge which is bent from the respective edge or face. It can be at any position or at any angle. For this casing design, four simple flanges are created with the material inside the edge of the existing component.

• Break Corner: This feature breaks the sharp edges in the corners and makes it round or adds chamfer. It is like the fillet feature in some other CAD software. It prevents the fracture breaking of the sharp corners.

• Closed Corner:is a command to modify two flanges in one operation and to close the corner where two flanges meet. During flattening the corner and the relief geometry are made appropriate for flat pattern.

• 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.

• Dimple: Dimples in sheet metal components provide more strength and rigidity to the flat structure of the component. Dimple feature in Siemens NX is created using the sketch created in any face or any flange of the sheet metal component. For this casing design project, a dimple made up of a 16 points curve is used at the center of the component.

• Mirror Body: Mirror body feature allows the solid body to get copied and mirrored with respect to a plane. Here, the design made till this stage is a half part of the box which is then mirrored with respect to YZ plane. A black edge appears on the face of the side flange representing the separation between two bodies.

• Normal Cut-out: A sketch is created on the XY plane to cut away the unnecessary material. Then the operation normal cut out is carried out. It cuts away the material at the right angle with respect to the sketch plane.

Drawing Sheet

Different Views

Conclusion :

The complex bracket was designed and the drawings were successfully displayed in this project report. The model was designed and the drawings and flat pattern drawings were created using Siemens NX. We have also seen and discussed what is a neutral data file and where it is used, we have also worked on a neutral data file in Siemens NX to perform flattening and forming operations