SOLIDWORKS Design & Help

Created by Angel Ramirez on 9 March, 2018

Sheet metal bends problems

Hi everyone. I am dealing witha a problem some time ago. In my work, sometimes i have to design hoppers with twisted squares sections. (see image below). As you can see, the sheets metal components have two bends. coincident at one vertex.

Just in this coincident vertex (mark with a black circle in the attached image), solidworks can't solve it and return me an error. Until now, i cheat SW shifting one of the faces a bit. And then fixing the contour in AutoCad to send it to laser cut. This process is manually and waste some time in each part.

I have to say: I am conscient that to make this part as i want is "theoretically impossible" to manufacture on press brake. But the angles are low and we can make it with no problems in our workshop. So i am looking for a method to design this bends directly in SolidWorks.

Thank you!!!!!

4 Answers

Hi, all you have to do is adjust the dimensions.

I am surprised to see a method like that to create bent sheet metal. It all works perfectly if you do like that.

Hi Wojciech S. I normally don't use this method to create sheet metal. I always try to work with "edge-flange" or similar ,it works perfectly, but in some situations, don't fit perfectly. In this case, i have some constraint that i have to accomplish. See image below.

We obtain a separation between edges. In this case is minimal, but with other hopper dimensions, this separation is too much, and we have problems with weldment.

Another way to accomplish this problem
Uses lofted formed bends in Solidworks
Method does not insert bend lines on patter due to non-parallel planes
If bend angles are needed use lofted bent bends
To get tight corners, slit on bend line for 1/2" if needed