Sheet metal design is the process of engineering sheet metal into equipment, parts, assemblies, and products. Autodesk Fusion provides the necessary software to automate sheet metal design, nest your components, and create tool paths for CNC.
Sheet metal design software is calibrated for the design, engineering, and manufacturing of sheet metal components and products. It provides tools and features that aid in the creation, modification, and optimization of sheet metal parts, as well as the generation of manufacturing instructions and documentation.
A flange is a common sheet metal feature, which consists of a bend connected to stationary face, along a straight edge.
Bend calculations make sure that the correct length is calculated when a sheet metal design is manufactured flat and then bent into its finished state based on a K-Factor.
Gauge tables define the thickness of sheet metal. There are several gauge tables depending on the material of the sheet metal, which specify the thickness for both inches and millimeters.
Pressurized water mixed with abrasives can cut through stainless steel, Inconel, titanium, aluminum, tool steel, ceramics, granite, and armor plate, with a clean edge finish.
A gas laser, such as a CO2, is transmitted through a beam, guided by mirrors, and directed at the material at an extremely high level of precision.
The plasma process uses electrically conductive gas to transfer energy from a torch to the material being cut. Developed for metals that could not be flame cut, such as stainless steel, aluminum, and copper.
Sheet metal design software like Autodesk Fusion includes a combination of 2D and 3D design capabilities. This allows engineers and designers to create precise models of sheet metal components. Users can define parameters such as material thickness, bend allowances, hole sizes, and other geometric features relevant to sheet metal fabrication.
Streamline your entire sheet metal design-through-fabrication workflow with one software package. Autodesk Fusion allows you to connect 2D and 3D workflows so you can create, modify, and document sheet metal designs. This makes it easy to quickly get a flat pattern into production.
Fusion offers a range of specialized tools tailored for sheet metal design. These tools include bend and unfold commands, sheet metal-specific parameters, corner reliefs, flange creation, and more. These features streamline the design process and enable designers to create accurate sheet metal components.
With cloud collaboration tools, multiple users to collaborate on the same design in real time. Cloud-based software is especially useful for product design teams, where parts of the products are often designed and manufactured by different team members across various locations.
Fusion combines both computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) functionalities in a single platform. This integration allows designers to seamlessly transition from creating 3D sheet metal models to generating toolpaths for manufacturing processes.
Flexible parametric modeling techniques allow designers to create flexible and adaptive sheet metal designs. With parametric modeling, changes made to the design propagate throughout the model, automatically updating features and maintaining design intent. This feature is useful in sheet metal design, where modifications and iterations are common.
Streamline the deformation-based sheet metal forming process with the sheet metal tools in Fusion. The software simplifies simulating sheet metal forming with an easy setup of loading conditions, contact conditions, fixes, displacement boundary conditions, and nonlinear material properties.
Autodesk Fusion supports a wide range of manufacturing processes commonly used in sheet metal fabrication, including laser cutting, punching, bending, welding, and more. Computer-aided manufacturing generates toolpaths for these manufacturing processes, making it easier to translate designs into physical parts.
Unlock additional capabilities for 3 to 5-axis CNC machining, sheet-based nesting and fabrication, and metals-based additive manufacturing.
Sheet metal bending calculations consider the impact of different material types on the bending factor. These calculations are used to predict the final shape and dimensional accuracy of sheet metal post-bending. Some key aspects involved in sheet metal bending calculations include:
The Autodesk Fusion Manufacturing Extension unlocks advanced capabilities in Autodesk Fusion to help manufacturers make better use of machinery for metal-based additive manufacturing, CNC machining, and the nesting and fabrication of parts from sheet materials.
Learn to create, modify, and apply sheet metal rules. Learn how to use the flange tool and how to create a cutout across multiple faces. Learn how to build a flat pattern and use it in a drawing in Fusion.
Learn the basics of sheet metal design in Fusion. We cover sheet metal components, rules, flanges, bends, unfolding sheet metal bodies, and flat patterns.
Learn how to design a sheet metal model using Fusion. See how to parametrically edit sheet metal models and how to set up a library for sheet metal rules. Also, learn about downstream manufacturing workflows for sheet metal models.
There are a few ways to create sheet metal components in Autodesk Fusion. You can create a new sheet metal component using the sheet metal rule. The rule uses your settings for material thickness, bend radius, and corner relief. You can also create a sheet metal component from scratch. You use sketch commands to create a profile for a base face or an initial contour flange. Then you exit the sketch and create your sheet metal face and flanges. Default rule is used but you can change or edit used rule.
Autodesk Fusion includes direct editing and advanced surface modeling features designed to dramatically reduce the time typically necessary for high-volume design production. Validate 3D digital models as you design without needing a prototype. Stress-test and optimize in one integrated design environment. Plus, built-in sheet metal specific commands streamline work on both folded and unfolded models.
Autodesk Fusion streamlines the deformation-based sheet metal forming process. The software simplifies simulating sheet metal forming with easy setup of loading conditions, contact conditions, fixes and displacement boundary conditions, and non-linear material properties.
Files from other CAD systems can be imported for use in Autodesk Fusion and exported to other CAD system formats.
Autodesk Fusion simplifies calculating bend allowance and offers the flexibility to see bending results specific to the data you have. While the default K-Factor of 0.44 is automatically built into the software, you can access the integrated editor in Inventor to create and edit bend tables.
Bend allowance is the length of the neutral line or axis that lies between the bend lines, or essentially, it's the arc length of the bend. This measurement is used to calculate the length of the flat piece of sheet metal needed to achieve a bent part of a certain size.
When a piece of metal is bent, one half of the bend is compressed and the other half is stretched. The neutral line or axis is the area of the metal that does not change during the bending process. The length of the neutral axis is known as the bend allowance.
The bend allowance is calculated based on the degree of the bend, the thickness of the metal, and the bend radius. The bend allowance added to the sum of the two flange lengths equals the total flat length of the sheet metal.
Knowing the bend allowance is crucial to achieving accurate results in sheet metal fabrication. It's used to determine the flat pattern layout to ensure the final bent product is the correct size and shape.
A sheet metal bend calculator is a tool that helps you calculate important parameters required in the bending of sheet metal. The calculator uses these parameters to determine the flat length of the sheet metal before bending to achieve the desired final part dimensions. The user typically inputs the material type, bend angle, inside radius, and material thickness, and the calculator provides the bend allowance, bend deduction, and sometimes the K-factor.
These calculators are invaluable tools for engineers, fabricators, and designers working with sheet metal, allowing them to accurately predict the outcomes of their bends and make necessary adjustments to their designs.
The K-factor in sheet metal bending is a ratio that represents the location of the neutral axis with respect to the thickness of the material. The neutral axis is the part of the metal that is neither compressed nor stretched during bending.
When a flat sheet of metal is bent, one surface of the material is compressed while the opposite surface is stretched. The neutral axis lies between these two surfaces and remains unchanged in length during the bending process.
The K-factor is calculated using the formula: K-factor = t / T
