Sheet Metal Bracket Design Guidelines

So you decided to design your own sheet metal part.

Sheet metal bracket design guidelines.

Form height to thickness ratio to determine the minimum form height for sheet metal use the following formula. Bends are the most typical feature of sheet metal parts and can be formed by a variety of methods and machines which negate the absolute need for some of the below tips. A 1 degree tolerance on all bend angles. Loading the starting point is determining what loading your metal part will be required to hold.

This is an example of dfm guidelines for sheetmetal fabrication. Use the following simple guidelines to formulate and design the type of sheet metal bracket you will need to successfully meet your requirements. 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. Depending on the alloy.

Therefore exceptions can be there for complex features design. However for typical parts meant to be cost effective and easily produced the following tips should be useful. In low carbon steel sheet metal the minimum radius of a bend should be one half the material thickness or 0 80 mm. Existing components were fem analysed and.

For the ease of manufacturing multiple bends on the same plane should occur in the same direction. Following all sheet metal design guidelines is very difficult in the complex part. Sheet metal design guidelines are followed to design quality sheet metal enclosures. The problem definition included producing guidelines regarding the two manufacturing methods of sheet metal.

Bends in sheet metal are manufactured using sheet metal brakes. This helps in delivering the product at low cost and faster timelines. It is always better to specify hole diameters that are greater than the sheet s thickness t. In a sheet metal design specifying hole sizes locations and their alignment is critical.

D 2 5t r see below the height can be less but it required secondary operations and is far more costly. Design for manufacturability sheet metal guidelines bends for the ease of manufacturing multiple bends on the same plane should occur in the same direction. Sheet metal parts with a minimum of 0 9mm to 20mm in thickness can be manufactured. Bends should be toleranced plus or minus one half degree at a location adjacent to the bends.

The guidelines were designed to aid mainly novice design engineers in early stages of component development. Beyond sheet metal properties and available materials here are eight ways to improve sheet metal parts.