SolidWorks Sheet Metal Tutorials for Beginners

Welcome to SolidWorks Tutorials for beginners, in this tutorial, you are going to see how to use solidworks sheet metal modelling. This SolidWorks Tutorial completely dedicated to beginners. It explains sheet metal basic features, how to use each one with examples. Follow this to get more Basic SolidWirks training materials.

What is Sheet Metal?

Sheet metal is the metal formed into thin and flat pieces, which uses sheets of thickness less than 6 mm. It is one of the main and basic forms of metal working. You can cut or bend into various shapes using sheet metal. The greatest feature of sheet metal is that it’s having ability to be formed and shaped by no of process.

Each of the process done after the metal and it gives different shape or size at the end. Sheet metal is formed by the application rolling, which comprise application of large compressive force on long metal work pieces, through certain no of rolls. I hope you are familiarized with different rolling methods which is studied in mechanical engineering classes. (Wiki pedia)

Normally, a sheet metal thickness mentioned as gauge of metal and it ranges from 30 to 8 gauge. That means, higher the gauge, thinner is the sheetmetal. Aluminum, brass, copper, mild steel, tin, nickel etc. are commonly used to create sheetmetals.

Applications of Sheet Metal

It have wide applications in various sections of engineering. It can be used to for making bodies of car, airplane wings, electronics casing, home appliances casing, laptop, CPU case, mobile phones etc.

What should you know about SolidWorks Sheet Metal?

Sheet metal bending or unbending is easy to do in real scenario with helps of various machine tools and experienced machinist. But, it is computer CAD program like SolidWorks is analytical in nature. So, you should have to represent bending process analytically. For representing that, SolidWorks provided bend allowance, bend deduction, k-factor etc.

Bend Allowance

It is allowance that given for flat sheet metal to bend to certain shape. The bend section takes small portion of flat sheet. So, you have to mention the allowance explicitly in SolidWorks. You have certain bending allowance value on the desired place or create bending allowance table for more accuracy.

Bend Deduction

It is also same as bend allowance, but just reverse of bend allowance. In Bend deduction, you are deducting the bend section length from the flat sheet metal.

Bend Angle:- The angle which represents bend section.

K-Factor:-

It is single value which is used to represent bending or unbending process over bend angle, material thickness, bend radii etc. K-factor value will be obtained from sheetmetal supplier or handbooks.

For example, for bronze and spring steel K value is “0.45”.

Material Thickness:- It is thickness of sheet metal material used.

Let us start SolidWorks Sheet Metal Tools application.

How to Use SolidWorks Base Flange | SolidWorks SheetMetal Tutorial #1

Base Flange is first and basic step used to start sheet metal model. It is applicable one per part file. You can create single open, single closed or multiple closed profiles for creating a base flange. Once you set metal thickness and bend radius, it will become default value for additional sheet metal features added to same base flange.

Step 1: Open SolidWorks New Part File

Open SolidWorks and create new Part file. Then select any default plane (e.g. Top plane) and apply “Normal To” view.

Step 2: Insert Base Flange Sheet Metal to Part File

Go to “Insert” menu, select “Sheet Metal” from drop down menu and select “Base Flange” from side drop down menu.

Insert -> Sheet Metal -> Base Flange

Step 3: Create Sketch for Base Flange

It will direct to Sketch section. You have to create single open (line), single closed (rectangle) or multiple closed sketch profiles.

Single Closed Sketch Profile – Rectangle

Here, I am going to make rectangle sketch profile. (This is just showing example, no need to enter dimensions).

After creating sketch profile, click on “Exit the Sketch”.

It will direct to the Base Flange Property Manager. Here, you need to enter sheet metal parameters (thickness, bend allowance, k-factor etc). Once you enter these values, it will automatically set for other application of sheet metal features on this base flange part file.

Thickness = 3.0 mm

K-factor = 0.45

Auto Relief ratio = 0.5

Apply these values and click Ok (green tick) on base flange property manager.

Go to File and Save sheet metal flange for future application of other solidworks sheet metal feature tools.

Single Open Sketch Profile – Line

Follow the above steps up to 2 (sketch section of base flange).

Draw the line sketch profile as shown in the above figure and apply all dimensions using the smart dimension tool. Then, “Exit The Sketch”.

It will direct to base flange property manager. Enter below values on the specified locations of base flange property manager.

Direction 1

Select “blind” and enter 20 mm.

Direction 2

Select “blind” and enter 30 mm.

Sheet Metal Parameters

Thickness = 3 mm (set direction of adding material thickness to profile inside or outside)

Bend radius = 0.8 mm

K-factor = 0.45 under bend allowance

Auto relief ratio = 0.5

After entering all the above values on base flange property manager and click on Ok.

You created base flange sheet metal section on SolidWorks using a single open sketch profile.

Save the part file for future reference.

How to Use SolidWorks Edge Flange | SolidWorks Sheet Metal Tutorial #2

In the base flange section, you seen the very first step to make sheet metal design in SolidWorks CAD software. The Edge Flange feature helps to add flanges to selected edge or more edges. The condition of application of Edge flange is that the Edges should be linear. You can also add flange parameters such as flange length angle, bend position direction, custom bend allowance, relief type etc in Edge flange property manager.

For showing SolidWorks Edge flange application, we are going to create new base flange sheet metal part. You can follow step 1 and step 2 and result is shown in figure below.

Then, you can go to Command manager or Insert Menu and select “Edge Flange” from sheetmetal side drop down menu..

Then, Select edge for creating edge flange on it. Here, I selected “Edge-1” and immediately preview available on that edge.

In Edge flange property manager, you can set Flange length, flange position and flange angle. There are five types of flange positions. They are Material outside, Material inside, bend outside, bend from virtual strap, tangent to bend. Here I am selected “Bend outside” edge flange position.

After entering all the details, click on green tick button.

How to Use SolidWorks Miter Flange | SolidWorks Sheet Metal Tutorial #2

Sheet metal miter flange is also like edge flange helps to add one or more flanges on base flange sheet metal part. Miter flange is slightly different from edge flange, because it needs a sketch profile of lines or arcs. And also sketch plane is always perpendicular to the first edge, where you are going create Miter flange. No need of any confusion about thickness of sheetmetal part, which is automatically selected from the base flange part.

Miter Flange Video Tutorial

Here I am going to create a miter flange on three edges using continuous line (L-shaped line or multiple continuous line).

For that I already created base flange sheetmetal part which is shown.

I have to create miter flange on the edges of this part. For that I selected a face as sketch plane. (Condition: sketch plane should be normal to first edge for creating sketch).

Select the Line sketch tool and start line from the edge and create L-shaped line. Applied smartdimension tool for entering dimension.

Select the sketch.

Then, go to “Insert menu” and from drop down menu select “SheetMetal” and “Miter flange” which is shown below.

Insert -> SheetMetal -> Miter Flange

You can see yellow preview which shows the miter flange appearance on the selected edge “Edge-1”.

Then, select Edge-2 and Edge-3 in clockwise direction and also see the preview below.

You can also adjust flange position from the Miter flange property manager. There are three types of flange positions available and they are Material inside, Material outside and Bend outside. Here I selected “Material outside”

Also you can adjust Gap distance. It adjust miter flange distance between them. You can also apply offset to the start and end from the property manager.

Finally, click on green tick button.

More SolidWorks SheetMetal Tutorials will publish soon…Stay Tuned…

Thank you Friends.