Sheet Metal Box Design Guide

Sheet metal materials are the most commonly used materials in the structural design of communication products.

Sheet metal box design guide.

Beyond sheet metal properties and available materials here are eight ways to improve sheet metal parts. Sheet metal parts with a minimum of 0 9mm to 20mm in thickness can be manufactured. Columnist gerald davis continues a discussion of 3 d cad and precision sheet metal manufacturing in part iii of a four part series focusing on design guidelines for sheet metal. Sheet metal boxes are two part enclosures made by cutting metal sheets and then bending the resulting parts using a press brake to form a box.

Similarly the more complicated the sheet metal bending process the more material waste may be caused. Aside from that a variety of metals is available including stainless steel aluminum cold rolled and galvanized steel and even copper and brass in thicknesses ranging from 0 02 in. Next month concludes with the pros and cons of hems jogs and forming tools. Sheet metal design guidelines are followed to design quality sheet metal enclosures.

Sheet metal thickness ranges from 0 024 in. This helps in delivering the product at low cost and faster timelines. Bends in sheet metal are manufactured using sheet metal brakes. Understanding the comprehensive performance of materials and the correct material selection have an important impact on product cost product performance product quality and processability.

Because sheet metal parts are manufactured from a single sheet of metal the part must maintain uniform wall thickness. Bends can give strength and shape to a part and are formed in a machine using bend brakes. To make things easy for my students i designed our classroom box so it would be able to work on the size of a standard 8 5 x 11 piece of paper. The patterns for a cardboard box will look very similar to what you need to plan out for the sheet metal box.

In the improved design the sheet metal only needs one bending process to complete the bending of the two sides at the same time. The box i have my students create in class ends up being 5 5 x 2 x 3 5. Since sheet metal cannot be bent to a 90 degree position without breaking at sharp corners all bends will have an acceptable bend radius. A 1 degree tolerance on all bend angles.

Therefore exceptions can be there for complex features design. The most common sheet metal form is a bend. Therefore when sheet metal has complex bends consider splitting a complex bend into two parts. Depending on the alloy.

Bends in the same plane should be designed in the same direction. Previous editions covered economic order quantity in batch production and the accuracy of things made from rolled sheet stock. Following all sheet metal design guidelines is very difficult in the complex part.