Sheet Metal Design using SolidWorks

Sheet Metal is a metal formed by an industrial process into thin, flat pieces. It is one of the fundamental forms used in metalworking and it can be cut and bent into a variety of shapes.

K- Factor is the ratio of location of the natural line to the material thickness. The K- Factor is used to calculate flat patterns because it is directly related to how much material is stretched during the bend.

The three procedures commonly used in developing sheet metal patterns are parallel line, radial line, and triangular development

In manufacturing industry, nesting refers to the process of laying out cutting patterns to minimize the raw material waste. SolidWorks Sheet Metal Costing helps to estimate material usage and costs of nested sheet metal parts, you can:

• Choose the sheet size
• Estimate the number of parts that can fit on a sheet
• Determine the number of sheets necessary

Benefits of Using SolidWorks:

• Convert SOLIDWORKS or imported CAD models, create original parts, or design around a group of parts
• Use Bend Tables for bend allowance/bend deduction
• Automatically flatten parts to generate flat patterns for manufacturing with bend compensation
• Automatically estimate sheet metal part manufacturing cost as you design

Parryware Roca Bathroom Products Pvt. Ltd. Reducing Design Time and Errors using SolidWorks Solutions

Parryware Roca’s global standing was further established when Ceramic World magazine ranked it the 10th best bathroom fixture manufacturer in the world in 2007. Parryware was the first and only bathroom product manufacturer in India named a “super brand.”

“WITH THE AIM AND PASSION OF IMPROVING PEOPLE’S QUALITY OF LIFE, WE TRY TO OFFER MORE AND BETTER BATHROOM SOLUTIONS AND SOLIDWORKS HELPED US TO ACHIEVE OUR TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION.”

Suresh Kumar M 

Dy.Manager

Using eDrawings,® the company was able to send 3D model information to the customer with no loss of data.

The Symmetry Check tool helped Parryware to verify the symmetry of designed products.

Benefits of photorealistic rendering

The easy-to-use progressive rendering tools in SolidWorks let users render photorealistic scenes while allowing them to continue working on the same scene, unlike software that forces users to wait until scenes are complete.

Parryware finds the complete package of SolidWorks tools essential for design and development.

Premier bathroom solutions company Parryware uses PhotoView 360 and the SolidWorks® Design Library to make the entire design process easier.

Challenge:

Speed up the delivery of complex designs and make

instant design changes that can be visualized in 3D.

Solution:

Use SolidWorks software for faster design times and photorealistic imaging.

Results:

• Produced photorealistic images for marketing

• Improved design symmetry before manufacture

• Reduced design cycles by 40 percent

New Technology from SolidWorks for Quality Inspection

Quality Inspectors examine products and materials for defects or deviations from specifications. Quality inspectors mark tag or note problems. They may reject defective items outright, send them for repair, or fix minor problems themselves. If the product is acceptable, the inspector certifies it. Overall, Quality Inspector plays a key factor in delivering products faster and ensure error free production in an organization.

Quality control inspectors typically do the following:

• Read blueprints and specifications

• Monitor operations to ensure that they meet production standards

• Recommend adjustments to the assembly or production process

• Inspect, test, or measure materials or products being produced

• Measure products with rulers, calipers, gauges, or micrometers

• Accept or reject finished items

• Remove all products and materials that fail to meet specifications

• Discuss inspection results with those responsible for products

• Report inspection and test data

Quality inspectors ensures quality standards for nearly all manufactured products. Specific job duties vary across the wide range of industries in which quality inspectors work. Quality control Engineers rely on a number of tools to do their jobs. Although some still use hand-held measurement devices, such as calipers and alignment gauges, workers more commonly operate electronic inspection equipment, such as coordinate-measuring machines (CMMs). Quality Inspectors record the results of their inspections through test reports. When they find defects, inspectors notify supervisors and help to analyze and correct production problems.

SolidWorks Introduces a great tool for Quality Inspectors to reduce their workload and create error free reports with ease. SolidWorks Inspection helps in creating First Article Inspection report, PPAP (Dimensional Test Report), Process Performance Report, AS9102, etc. Balloon drawing creation made easy now as SolidWorks Inspection Captures all Characteristics in a drawing. Hence Quality Assurance can easily built their reports faster and error free.

SolidWorks Inspection Capabilities:

1. Automatic Balloon Creation process using OCR(Optical Character Recognition)
2. Automatic Report Creation Process with single click
3. Compare and Replace Ballooned drawing
4. Easily Find the missed characteristics to balloon
5. Integrate with QualityXpert & Net-Inspect to track the supply chain in detail
6. Integrate with Digital Instruments to enter measured value automatically
7. Import CMM results to auto-assign based on nominal and Tolerance results
8. Results showcased in Color codes based on results
9. Results showcased in best worst and average based on the measured inputs.

Quality Inspector spends 90% of their time in inspecting the product quality and their conformation. This tool, SolidWorks Inspection ease their jobs by automating the balloon creation process, Report creation process and Check Conformity of the part. SolidWorks Inspection helps in to ensure all products sold to customers are of the highest possible quality.

Confused With Wire/Cable Harnessing? - Harnessing Technology By SolidWorks Electrical

SolidWorks Electrical is an intuitive and powerful tool which takes care of wire and cable harness design and create the flattened view with automatic updated BOM/Cut.

Engineers need to put more thought into thinks like wire length, bending radius and routing. As wiring harness become increasingly complex and an important part of design we are in need of a powerful tool to ease our design process, this is where SolidWorks Electrical comes into play.

Today in Automotive sector there are many more computers and Electronic Control Units used in vehicles today. These ECU are used to control the transmission, and other major devices of the vehicle and they have to be connected via wire harness in order for the system to work

What is Wire Harness?

The wire harness is compactly bundled wire which plays as the conduit for transmission of control and power signals acting as the “Central Nervous System of a vehicle”.

When designing a new product, engineers focus mainly on functionality, features, styling, and cost. What they don’t always think about is the wiring part.

SolidWorksElectrical provides you the highly simplified auto-routing of wire, cables, and harness and generate their reports automatically and enables last minute harness design changes by utilizing advanced harness technology saving your design cycle time.

Benefits Attained:

• Reduces the Harness Scrap
• Reduced cost - accurate harness reports
• With stand last minute Design changes
• Better 3D Visualization

Mobile Phone Back Case Structural Simulation

Mobile Phones nowadays have become so handy among people & the Design Innovations undergone by the phone companies are so pretty big. The back mobile case cover is mostly prone to failures as it is the most critical component for the real world applications. During the mid of 2015 year, some non standard tests were undergone on the back case products for failure mode analysis. Let's have a quick look on how SolidWorks Simulation offers the design principles in solving the real time problems.

A general Static analysis is performed to verify the failure zone on the case covers. Since these tests require some physical bending & hardened strength of material, the linearization of the problem is the upmost priority for verification.

To validate this product, firstly we need make some assumptions & simplification of the problem. The initial assumption made here is a person sitting on the back of the mobile phone weighing 70kgs. The model thickness (Shell thickness) was considered to be 1.5mm, which purely stiffens the geometry towards bending.

ANALYSIS Conditions:

• Material : Aluminium - 6061 Alloy (From Material database). The material assigned to the product is manufactured of Aluminium material as in actual cases. The material database present in SolidWorks Simulation gives users with multiple options in material selection with customized library.
• Boundary condition : Side faces of the model are restrained with all the degrees of freedom (Selection on faces/ edges).
• Loads : Force = 70kgf (Normal to the back face reference). Depending on the complexity of the problem, we can apply loads as Force or Pressure as indicated.
• Mesh Parameters : Solid Mesh with curvature based mesh type was used. The element size of 1.2mm was used globally throughout the geometry.

ANALYSIS Results:

SolidWorks Simulation gives beautiful color plots for the user for easy review of the results. For validating this mobile case product, we need to review the results like Stress, Displacement, F.O.S. & Fatigue Life cycle.

To be more precise on the results, SolidWorks Simulation offers to perform Non-Linear Static studies for time based loading conditions. The loads assigned for reference can be indicated with respect to Time curve, or if we use Rubber / Plastic materials in analysis, we can use the Stress-Strain curves for various models for validation.

Benefits:

• Shortest learning curve
• Ease of use in conducting virtual based simulations
• What-if scenarios on models, loads & material conditions
• Integrated platform where designers become analysts

 

Visual Product Validation to Boost your Business

 

Blocking License Borrowing from the SolidNetWork License (SNL) Manager

There is no direct way to disable this feature through the SNL Manager; however it can be controlled by use of an Options file.

The option BORROW_LOWWATER can be used to prevent all users from being able to borrowing a license of a specified product from the SolidWorks network license. Example: If the SNL is having 4 Professional License. Then the option file should consist of the following syntax. (Based upon your requirement enter the number of licenses)

Step 1: Create a Notepad file with the above mentioned Syntax and save it with extension *.opt.
Step 2: Place this file in the same directory as sw_d.lic (the license file) on the server. The license file should be located in C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidNetWork License Manager\licenses.
Step 3: Go to SolidNetWork License Manager Server and Select Server Administration Tab.
Step 4: Click Modify button and Choose Activate/Reactivate a software license, Click Next

Step 5: Check the Option File Check Box and Browse for your “Options file”
Step 6: Click Next Button
Step 7: Perform normal License Activation Procedure.

Prerequisites:
1. Solidworks software should be closed in all machines.
2. Licenses should not be borrowed by any user.
3. All Licenses should be surrendered.

List of Product Feature Names used in Options File

 

REMAN ENGINEERING WORKS

Ramping up productivity and avoiding waste with SolidWorks

Reman Engineering began operations in 1989 in Namakkal, India, the “Poultry City” of Tamilnadu, India’s second-largest egg-producing region. The company makes mash plants, pellet plants, batching machines, batching scales, feed silos, and transport silos for the poultry industry. They also manufacture sheet metal and structural works to customer specifications.

Reman Engineering manufactures and markets poultry feed mills and raw material batch machines according to rigorous quality control guidelines and in compliance with globally recognized quality standards for the industry. Their practices have made a strong impact on India’s pet food industry.

Challenge:

• Standardize the design of feed mills of various
• sizes and reduce raw material waste and rework

Solution:

• Adopt SolidWorks software for fully associated
• parts, assemblies, and drawings to incorporate
• new ideas into configurations and avoid rework and waste

Results:

• Produced clear cut-list properties
• Created clear, detailed manufacturing drawings
• Reduced rework for more effective use of manufacturing time
• Eliminated raw material waste

To Know More

 

Inserting Custom Parts into Toolbox

SolidWorks toolbox consist of numerous standard part models which helps us to reduce the most valuable design time in only creating custom parts.in the competitive world its necessary for us to shorten the process time between the drawing board room to the tool room.
Even though having handful of standard parts.there is a need to add custom components to the toolbox.
SolidWorks provides us a opportunity to add custom made components to the toolbox.
1. Create the part models along with its required configurations and save the models in the desired location.
2. Go to Start > All programs > Toolbox Settings 20nn and click customize your hardware.

3. Right click on the standard folder and select ”New folder”.Sub folders can also be created.Add a name to the folder.

4. Select the newly created folder and select “Add File”.

5. Custom Properties and standard colour can be defined.

6.As the Standard parts are created,This can be drag and dropped from the Design Library.