Learning Sheet metal design for product development
Mufaddal Rasheed 
Knowing how to design sheet metal parts is a key skill for design engineer in designing mechanical products
Sheet metal components are very commonly used in products today, Learning how to design sheet metal components is important skillset for versatile design engineer.
What should we learn?
- Understand and gain insight on the processes - There are multiple number of processes by which sheet metal can be bent, formed, rolled. Knowing them is key to deciding which is most suitable for a design
- Bending Parameters in design
- Understand the material properties and their deviations.
- Understand the mechanics of plastic metal forming.
- Understand the forming and bending limits of sheet metal (not all materials can be formed into any geometry as desired)
- Design for Manufacture and ease of assembly
- Formability, Bendability
- Design for Sheet meta manufacturing – Guidelines and best practices
- Sheet metal Concept development
- Engineering analysis
- Practical application and projects
General sequence of operations includes
- Rolling from Billets
- Blanking
- Bending
- Forming
Blanking operation :
Bending processes:
Forming process :
Flanges are common design features in sheet metal.
Due to the low thickness sheet metal parts require stiffening.
Using dimples and beads, sheet metal parts are stiffened in forming
A sheet metal bracket in Vehicle Chassis
Combination of Forming and Bending
More topics to learn:
- The Theory behind Forming and Bending
- What are Forming Limit diagrams? How are they created?
- Bending allowances calculation
- Minimum Bend radius
- K factor, Neutral axis, Bend allowance
- The concept of Spring-back and ways to reduce it
- Deep drawing process and the design considerations
- Joining processes and their comparison
To learn about Sheet metal design in deep here is a course which can help :
Basics of Sheet metal design for Mechanical design engineers
For more content on sheet metal design have a look at the list of articles here :
How to Stiffen Sheet metal design
Categories: : Sheet metal