Sheet Metal Design

Created by Kyle Oickle on 19 June, 2018

I'm looking for ideas for easy production of a similar part

Hello engineers!
I need optimization for easier production of this part. It's made from 1mm stainless sheet 304.
So far we've tried press bending and rollers, then I added perforations along the bend lines, which aren't visible on the attached model as it wasn't built that way. This is the area with a smaller bend radius towards the end of the part.
I was thinking about a machine with forming rolls to go around the patterned workpiece like pipe benders for example, but my part has at least two adjacent zones with different bend radii. More like an ellipsoidal profile.
The particular attached model I built using spline and It's just for reference. Deviations from its parameters are permissible within certain limits, for example:
- from the vertical wall to the opposite bent wall - up to about +-10mm;
- from the lowest part of the ellipse (floor) to the end of the part with the small bending radius - up to about +-5mm;
- the vertical part of the wall with the small bend at 30 degrees - up to about +-10mm.

The ultimate goal is ability to produce the part by hand, as it is still in small batches, using the lever mechanism that I am thinking of.
I imagine it as this: we cut the blank with a laser, clean it, place it in the machine, clamp it, one or more movements with a lever, change the insert-template if needed, move again with a lever and remove the finished part.

Thanks in advance to those who responded!

1 Answer

If you don't need an accuracy in your geometry, you can try to make some kind of tooling for handel sheet metal bender (like in video). I mean ellipsed part won't be round, it will be polygonal (like on attached pic). So the tooling is just a set of angle stoppers.
https://youtu.be/zAcRqDObzGM