Sheet Metal Structure Design Principles

The manufacturability of sheet metal parts refers to the difficulty of parts in punching, bending and stretching. Good technology should ensure less material consumption, less number of processes, simple die structure, high service life and stable product quality. In general, the biggest impact on the manufacturability of sheet metal parts is the performance of materials, the geometry, size and accuracy requirements of parts. In order to fully consider the requirements and characteristics of processing technology in the structural design of thin plate members, several design criteria are recommended here.

1.Simple Shape Criterion

The simpler the geometry of the cutting surface, the more convenient and simple the cutting and blanking, the shorter the cutting path and the smaller the cutting amount. For example, straight lines are simpler than curves, circles are simpler than ellipses and other high-order curves, and regular graphics are simpler than irregular graphics.

2.Guidelines for Saving Raw Materials (configuration guidelines for punching parts)

Saving raw materials means reducing manufacturing costs. Bits and pieces of leftover materials are often treated as waste. Therefore, leftover materials should be reduced as much as possible in the design of thin plate components. The waste materials of punching and cutting shall be minimized to reduce the waste of materials. In particular, the effect is remarkable when cutting large quantities of components. The ways to reduce cutting corners are as follows:

1)Reduce the distance between two adjacent components.

2)Clever arrangement.

3)Take out the material at the large plane and use it for smaller components.

3.Criterion of Sufficient Strength and Stiffness

1)the bending edge with beveled edge shall avoid the deformation area

2)If the distance between the two holes is too small, cracks may occur during cutting.

The punching design of parts shall consider leaving appropriate hole edge distance and hole spacing to avoid punching crack. The minimum distance between the punching edge of the part and the shape is limited according to the shape of the part and the hole. When the punching edge is not parallel to the contour edge of the part, the minimum distance shall not be less than the material thickness T; When parallel, it shall not be less than 1.5T.

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The round hole is the most solid in mold making, which is easy to manufacture and maintain, but the opening rate is low.

The opening rate of square hole is the highest, but the corner edge is easy to wear and collapse due to 90 degree angle, resulting in die repair and line stop

The hexagonal opening has a 120 degree angle greater than 90 degrees, which is stronger than the square opening, but the opening rate is a little worse at the edge than the square opening.

3) Slender lath has low stiffness and is easy to crack during cutting, especially serious wear of cutting tools.

In general, the depth and width of the protruding or concave part of the blanking part shall not be less than 1.5T (T is the material thickness). At the same time, narrow and long cuts and too narrow grooves shall be avoided, so as to increase the edge strength of the corresponding part of the die. For general steel ≥ 1.5T;

For alloy steel ≥ 2T; For brass and aluminum ≥ 1.2t.