cvs wug sheet metal

7/30/2019 Cvs Wug Sheet Metal

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SolidWorks

Sheetmetal

By Matt LombardFor CVSWUG meeting

October 20, 2005Portions borrowed from Mike Sabochecks sheetmetal

presentation


2/33

Sheetmetal Rules

Sheetmetal work in SolidWorks requires that you remember

a couple rules:

Parts have a constant thickness

Thickness faces are always perpendicular to the bend

faces (material is never sheared at an angle)

The bend faces are limited to cylindrical, planar, conicalshapes

The exceptions are form tools and Lofted Bends


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Contest

The next 6 slides show examples of Sheet Metal Parts

Determine whether or not the part can be flattened with the

reason why.

First correct answer wins a Prize.


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The Flatten Test #1

Can it be flattened: Yes or No?

Why?? Or Why not??

Ans. = No, Sphere


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The Flatten Test #2


Why?? Or Why not??

Ans. = No, Partial Torus


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The Flatten Test 3#


Why?? Or Why not??

Ans. = Yes, all planes and

cylinders


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The Flatten Test #4


Why?? Or Why not??

Ans. = Yes, all planes and

cylinders


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The Flatten Test #5


Why?? Or Why not??

Ans. = Yes, All cones


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The Flatten Test #6


Why?? Or Why not??

Ans. = No, Spline geometry.

Where??


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Sheetmetal Functions

InsertBen

ds

FlattenBen

ds

NoBen

ds

R

ip

B

aseFlange/Tab

MiterFlange

Fo

ld

Unfo

ld

SketchedBen

ds

EdgeFlange

ClosedCorn

er

He

m

Bre

ak/TrimC

orn

er

Jog

LoftedBend

New SchoolOld School


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New School vs Old School

There are two basic methods SolidWorks sheetmetal can

be used:

Model the part using regular SolidWorks functions like

extrude, revolve, etc.

This is Old School

Generally used only for imported parts and rolled parts

Start with an open sketch and a Base Flange featureThis is New School

Much more powerful

Way more options


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New School vs Old School

If youre new to SolidWorks (since, say 2001), you may not

realize there was an old way.

It used to be the Old School way was the only way to model

sheetmetal parts in Solidworks.

The old way works, but it is very limited and you have to

constantly mess with feature order to get it to work right.

You should use the newer methods by default.


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Base Flange

Base Flange requires an open sketch


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Edge Flange

Select an edge, hit the button, pull the flange

Flange Length and Position buttons are self

explanatory

Offset allows

you to create a

dogleg flange

You can also

change the angle

of the flange


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Edge Flange

Edit Flange Profile allows you to change the sketch of the

flange and alter the shape


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Miter Flange

Miter Flange requires an open sketch on the edge of the

part

Sketch

Propagate to

tangent

Allowance for

flattening


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Fold / Unfold

To put a feature across a bend, unfold the bend, put in the

feature, then fold it again

Use offset entities tomake slots!

Select face to remain

stationary

Collect finds all the

unfolded bends


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Tab

There are no settings for the Tab function, it just adds a tab

to the sketch face


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Sketched Bend

Draw a line all the way across the part

Dont cross bend lines

Line must go all the way across

Control bend angle and direction

Black dot selects stationary face


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Jog

Like a double sketched bend on steroids

Allows you to keep the original length of the tab or add material as it jogs


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Hems

Buttons and dimensions should be self explanatory

Way cool.


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Corner Break

Chamfers or rounds sharp outside corners

Puts you into a selection filter model to pick short edges across the

thickness and bend faces

Selecting a face breaks all corners on face


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Forming Tools

Forming tools drag and drop from the Design Library

Forming tools maintain a constant thickness (they may add

mass to the part)

Red faces create holes in the part

Only works onsheetmetal parts

(Use Indent, or Deform Surface

Push for non-sheetmetal parts)


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Forming Tool Trix

Here are a couple of things that youre not supposed to do

with forming tools

(examples on my website)

Form across

bends

Gussets


25/33

Forming Tool Trix

For other things that forming tools cant do, use the new Flex

tool in SW2005 for sheetmetal and non-sheetmetal parts


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Lofted Bend

Lofted Bend is meant to make a looks like transition from

one shape to another. This does not strictly adhere to regular

sheetmetal industry practice for parts like this


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Lofted Bend

Lofted Bend can also be used to do all sorts of things you

shouldnt do with sheetmetal:

and yes, these can all be flattened out


28/33

Old School

Chamfers or rounds sharp outside corners

Build box shell

Rip corners Insert

bends

Flatten


29/33

Old School

Old school is very order dependent

New school has a suppressed feature that remains on the

bottom of the tree


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Finer Points

How does SW handle bend allowances?

K Factor

Bend AllowanceBend Deduction

Bend Table

A very good mathematical description of how SW handles

bend allowances is available as a Knowledge Base article

on the SW website.


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Finer Points

How does SW handle bend reliefs?

Tear = zero thickness cut

Rectangular = default depth is half of thicknessObround = full round cut

These settings are kept in the Sheetmetal feature in the

tree.


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Finer Points

Sheetmetal automatically creates a link value called

thickness, which allows the thickness of the entire part to

be changed at once

Link Value symbol


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More Info

www.sheetmetaldesign.com from Sean Adams

www.engineersedge.com all sorts of Technical info

www.sme.org Society of Manufacturing Engineers

www.eng-tips.com Technical Moderated Groups

www.sheetmetalworld.com Tons of Sheet Metal info

www.trimech.com Tech Newsletter

www.solidworks.com/swexpress/index.cfmSolidWorks Express Newsletter
http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/releases/20121107221618/tmp/scratch_5/SolidWorks-SheetMetalBestPractices_2003-02-22.pdfhttp://www.engineersedge.com/http://www.sme.org/http://www.eng-tips.com/http://www.sheetmetalworld.com/http://www.trimech.com/http://www.solidworks.com/swexpress/index.cfmhttp://www.solidworks.com/swexpress/index.cfmhttp://www.trimech.com/http://www.sheetmetalworld.com/http://www.eng-tips.com/http://www.eng-tips.com/http://www.eng-tips.com/http://www.sme.org/http://www.engineersedge.com/http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/releases/20121107221618/tmp/scratch_5/SolidWorks-SheetMetalBestPractices_2003-02-22.pdf

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