Generally we believe that all sheet metal materials with uniform thickness are collectively called sheet metal. Commonly used sheet metal materials include stainless steel, galvanized steel, copper, aluminum, and iron.
In actual industrial applications, sheet metal products are mainly used in industrial products such as standard cabinets, self-service terminal products, and non-standard customized appearance products.
This article will introduce the basic design principles of sheet metal products, and share the design methods of non-standard products based on the above three product types. First, let’s take a look at the basic design principles of sheet metal products.
Principle 1: Choose the appropriate thickness of sheet metal parts.
The thickness of sheet metal parts has various rules from 0.03 to 4.00mm, but the problem is that the greater the thickness, the more difficult it is to process, and the defect rate also increases. The thickness should be selected according to the actual functional requirements of the product. Under the premise of meeting the strength and rigidity of the sheet metal, the thinner the thickness of the sheet metal, the better. For most products, the thickness of sheet metal parts is controlled below 1.00mm, and industrial-grade sheet metal products generally take between 1.0 and 2.0.
Principle 2: The design of sheet metal parts should be oriented to the processability of sheet metal.
The design of any part should be oriented to the processing technology. Products that do not conform to the processing technology cannot be manufactured. The workmanship of sheet metal refers to the difficulty of punching and bending of products in various processing processes. The basic sheet metal processing methods are: punching, bending, stretching, forming, etc.
Principle 3: The shape of the blanking piece should be as simple as possible
Avoiding the depth and width of the protruding or concave part of the slender cantilever and the slot blanking piece. Generally, it should be greater than 1.5/t (t is the plate thickness) At the same time, narrow and long incisions and too narrow slots should be avoided in order to increase the edge strength of the corresponding part of the mold, as shown in the figure below.
Principle 4: The shape and inner hole design of the blanking parts should avoid sharp corners on the blanking parts.
The sharp corners on the blanking parts will directly affect the life of the mold. When designing the product, pay attention to the round transition at the corner connection. The radius r≥0.5t (t is the plate thickness), as shown in the figure below.
Principle 5: Determination of the minimum bending radius value
When the material is bent, the outer layer is stretched while the inner layer is compressed in the rounded corner area. When the thickness of the material is constant, the smaller the inner fillet, the more severe the stretching and compression of the material; when the tensile stress of the outer fillet exceeds the ultimate strength of the material, cracks and breaks will occur; if the bending radius If the value is too large, it will be affected by the rebound of the material, and the accuracy and shape of the product cannot be guaranteed.
In actual product design, mastering the craftsmanship is an indispensable part of the design, but why many students have been working on craftsmanship, but they can’t move to the design post What? The reason is that design tools and process knowledge cannot be combined, and they cannot be integrated into actual sheet metal design.
