Rapid prototyping of sheet metal workpieces using bending-machining hybrid process

Sheet metal structures produced by bending are extensively used in a wide variety of industries. Rapid production of such workpieces is well sought after for low production volume demands. An effective and practical way to reduce springback is through compensating die dimensions, which has proved to be economic for large production scenario. However, in the environment of rapid production, part dimensions and/or material composition change frequently and hence new dies have to be designed and made to address these changes even if they are minor. Such situation inevitably incurs significant effort and high expenditure on determining appropriate die dimensions and fabricating new dies, and therefore imposes both time and financial burdens on producing angular sheet metal workpieces particularly at very low production volumes. This paper presents an effective and economic way of prototyping sheet metal workpieces with angular dimensional accuracy maintained, however without the need of creating new dies. The methodology extends from the author's previous work on angular dimension improvement as reported by Li and Sekar (Proceedings of the 2016 Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, MSEC2016, 2016) to the rapid prototyping of sheet metal structures and process planning of bending-machining hybrid process. Three case studies are provided in the paper and the outcome shows that the methodology is capable of prototyping angled sheet metal workpieces with existing dies that are not designed nor compensated for the prototype models.