Drawing is a metalworking process which uses tensile forces to stretch metal. It is broken up into two types: sheet metal drawing and wire, bar, and tube drawing. The specific definition for sheet metal drawing is that it involves plastic deformation over a curved axis. For wire, bar, and, tube drawing the starting stock is [...]
Blanking is a shearing process where a punch and die are used to create a blank from sheet metal or a plate. The blank is workpiece ejected from the starting stock. The process and machinery are usually the same as that used in piercing, except that the piece being punched out in the piercing process [...]
There are three basic types of bending on a press brake, each is defined by the relationship of the end tool position to the thickness of the material. These three are Air Bending, Bottoming and Coining. The configuration of the tools for these three types of bending are nearly identical. […]
Bending is a manufacturing process that produces a V-shape, U-shape, or channel shape along a straight axis in ductile materials, most commonly sheet metal. Commonly used equipment include box and pan brakes, brake presses, and other specialized machine presses. Typical products that are made like this are boxes such as electrical enclosures and rectangular ductwork. [...]
The era of robotic automation’s reputation as an expensive, over complicated technology is gone. In recent years many small to medium-sized companies have turned to automation in order to compete with low-cost sourcing. […]
Recent advancements in industrial PC CNC controls have opened a new technology path to improved speed, accuracy, surface finish, flexibility and convenience for moldmaking, along with greater value. Here is a review of some of the features of the next generation controls you should consider when investigating your next PC CNC control purchase. [...]
CATIA is widely used throughout the engineering industry, especially in the automotive and aerospace sectors. CATIA V4, CATIA V5, Pro/ENGINEER, NX (formerly Unigraphics), and SolidWorks are the dominant systems. […]
CATIA (Computer Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application) is a multi-platform CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suite developed by the French company Dassault Systemes and marketed worldwide by IBM. Written in the C++ programming language, CATIA is the cornerstone of the Dassault Systemes product lifecycle management software suite. The software was created in the late 1970s and early 1980s [...]
screen shot captured from a SolidWorks top-down design approach.SolidWorks is a parasolid-based solid modeler, and utilizes a parametric feature-based approach to create models and assemblies. […]
SolidWorks is a 3D mechanical CAD (computer-aided design) program that runs on Microsoft Windows and was developed by Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp., a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, S. A. (Vélizy, France). SolidWorks is currently used by over 3.4 million engineers and designers at more than 100,000 companies worldwide. […]