Sheet metal operations

Engineering workshops
Sheetmetal products
Introduction
• Sheet-metal forming operations produce a wide range of consumer and
industrial products, such as metal desks, appliances, aircraft fuselages,
beverage cans, car bodies, and kitchen utensils.
• Sheet-metal forming, also called pressworking, press forming, or stamping
• It is among the most important of metalworking processes, dating back to
as early as 5000 B.C., when household utensils, jewelry, and other objects
were made by hammering and stamping metals such as gold, silver, and
copper.
• Compared to those made by casting or forging, for example, sheet-metal
parts offer the advantages of light weight and shape versatility.
Introduction
• In sheet-metal working, there is no need for further machining as
required for casting and forging works.
• The time taken in sheet-metal working is approximately half of that
required in the machining process.
• For carrying out sheet metal work, the knowledge of geometry,
mensuration and properties of metal is most essential because
nearly all patterns come from the development of the surfaces of a
number of geometrical models such as cylinder, prism, cone, and
pyramid.
Introduction

• Sheet forming, unlike bulk deformation processes,

involves workpieces with a high ratio of surface area to
thickness, as can be seen by inspecting simple products
such as cookie sheets and hubcaps.
• A sheet thinner than .15 mm is generally called foil
• A sheet thicker than 6 mm is generally called plate.
• Sheet metal is produced by the rolling process
• If the sheet is thin, it is generally coiled after rolling; if
thick, it is available as flat sheets or plates, which may
have been decoiled and flattened prior to forming them.
Common materials used in Sheetmetals
• Generally, metals used in sheet metal work are:
• black iron
• galvanized iron
• Aluminum
• stainless steel
• Copper
• brass
• Zinc
• tin plate and lead.
Most common 4 sheets material used
• 1. Black Iron Sheet It is probably the cheapest of all the metal used for sheet metal
work. It is bluish black in appearance and is used generally in form of uncoated sheet. It
can be easily rolled into the desired thickness. Since it is uncoated it corrodes rapidly.
Hence to increase its life it can be painted or enameled. This metal is generally used in
the making or roofs, food containers, stove pipes, furnace fittings, dairy equipments,
tanks, cans and pans, etc.
• 2. Galvanized Iron (G.I.) It is popularly known as G.I. sheets. It is soft steel coated with
molten zinc. This coating resists rust formation on surface and improves appearance
and water resistance. Articles such as pans, water tanks, furnaces, buckets, cabinets
etc. are made from GI sheets.
• 3. Stainless Steel It is an alloy of steel with nickel, chromium and small percentages of
other metals. It has good corrosion resistance. It is costlier but tougher than GI sheets.
it is used in kitchenware, food processing equipments, food handling articles, tools and
instruments for surgery work in hospitals and components of chemical plants etc.
(commonly coating is not needed when stainless steel is used)
• Other metal sheets used for sheet metal work are made up of copper, tin, and lead.
Black iron Galvanized Iron Stainless steel
In sheet metal work, various operations such as

• Shearing
• Blanking
• Punching
• Piercing
• Trimming/Shaving
• Notching
• Forming
• Bending
• Stamping /Coining/embossing
• embossing etc. they are to be performed on sheet metal using hand tools and
press machines to make a product of desired shape and size.
Some sheet
metal
processes
Shearing operations
• In this section, we describe
various operations that are
based on the shearing
process. It should first be
noted that in punching, the
sheared slug is discarded
• in blanking, the slug is the
part itself, and the rest is
scrap.
Shearing operations a.Die • Die cutting typically consists of
the operations shown in
cutting • where the parts produced have
various uses, particularly in their
assembly with other components
of a product:
(1) perforating, that is, punching a
number of holes in a sheet;
(2) parting, or shearing the sheet
into two or more pieces, usually
when the adjacent blanks do not
have a matching contour
(3) notching, or removing pieces or
various shapes from the edges
(4) slitting (5) lancing, or leaving a
tab on the sheet without removing
any material.
Fine blanking • .Very smooth and square edges
can be produced by fine blanking
• One basic die design is shown in
• in which a V-shaped stinger
(impingement) locks the sheet
tightly in place and prevents the
type of distortion of the material,
such as that shown in Fig. 7.6.
Fine blanking involves clearances
on the order of 1% of the sheet
thickness, as compared with as
much as 8% in ordinary shearing
operations. The thickness of the
sheet may typically range from
0.5 to 13 mm, with a dimensional
tolerance of 0.05 mm.
Slitting Slitting is a shearing operation
carried out with a pair of
circular blades, similar to those
on a can opener
The blades follow either a
straight line, circular, or curved
path. Straight slitting is
commonly used in cutting wide
sheet, as delivered by rolling
mills, into narrower strips for
further processing into
individual parts. A slit edge
typically has a burr, which may
be
Nibbling • In this operation, a machine called
a nibbler moves a straight punch
up and down rapidly into a die.
The sheet is fed through the
punch-die gap, making a number
of overlapping holes, an operation
that is similar to making a large
elongated hole by successively
punching holes with a paper
punch. Intricate slots and notches
can thus be produced using
standard punches. Sheets can be
cut along any desired path by
manual or automatic control. The
process is economical for small
production runs since no special
dies are required.
Miscellaneous methods of cutting sheet metal
The following list describes several other methods of cutting sheets and,
particularly, plates.
1. The sheet or plate may be cut with a band saw,
2. Oxyfuel-gas (flame) cutting may be employed, particularly for thick
plates, as widely used in shipbuilding and heavy-construction industries.
3. Friction sawing involves the use of a disk, or blade, that rubs against the
sheet or plate at high surface speed.
4. Water-jet cutting and abrasive water-jet cutting are effective operations
on sheet metals as well as on nonmetallic materials.
5. Laser-beam cutting is now widely used, with computer-controlled
equipment, for high productivity, consistently cutting a variety of shapes.
Bending and drawing 1 -Press-brake forming.
• Sheet metal or plate can be bent
with simple fixtures, using a press.
Parts that are long (7 m or more)
and relatively narrow are usually
bent in a press brake.
• This machine uses long dies in a
mechanical or hydraulic press and
is suitable for small production
runs. The tooling is simple and
adaptable to a wide variety of
shapes and the process can easily
be automated. Die materials for
most applications are carbon steel
or gray iron but may range from
hardwood (for low-strength
materials and small production
runs) to carbides.
Folding operations

• The simplest bends can be produced by holding the component in a vice and
bending it over usinga soft hammer. If the component is wider than
• the vice jaws, it can be clamped between metalbars. Unless a radius is put on
one of the bars,this method produces a sharp inside corner, whichmay not
always be desirable.
• Folding machines, in the figure are used with largerwork of thicker gauges
and for folding box sections. The top clamping beam is adjustable to allow
for various thicknesses of material andcan be made up in sections known as
fingers toaccommodate a previous fold. Slots betweenthe fingers allow a
previous fold not to interferewith further folds, as in the case of a box
sectionwhere four sides have to be folded. The frontfolding beam, pivoted at
each end, is operated by
• a handle which folds the metal past the clamping blade
Flange making
• Illustrations of various
flanging operations. (a) Flanges
formed on flat sheet, (b)
dimpling, and (c) piercing sheet
metal with a punch to form a
circular flange. In this
operation, a hole does not
have to be prepuce; note,
however, the rough edges
along the circumference of the
flange. (d) Flanging of a tube;
note the thinning of the
periphery of the flange, due to
its diametral expansion.
Roll bending
• Roll-bending or curving, designates
the manufacture of sheet-metal parts
that are rolled or curved into
cylindrical shapes or shapes that have
a smooth radius associated with them.
Deep Drawing • (a) Schematic illustration of
the deep-drawing process on
a circular sheetmetal blank.
The stripper ring facilitates
the removal of the formed
cup from the punch. (b)
Variables in deep drawing of
a cylindrical cup. Note that
only the punch force in this
illustration is a dependent
variable; all others are
independent variables,
including the blankholder
force.
ARC WELDING
 • A sheet metal
Development of Sheetmetal development serves to
open up (layout or flatten)
(flat pattern) an object that has been
rolled, folded, or a
combination of both, and
makes that object appear
to be spread out on a
plane or flat surface.

• The development of sheet-

metal components ranges
from the simple to the
extremely complex. Let us
consider three simple
shapes: a cylinder, a cone
and a rectangular tray.
Nesting flat pattrents
• In manufacturing industry,
Nesting refers to the process of
laying out cutting patterns to
minimize the raw material
waste. Examples include
manufacturing parts from flat
raw material such as sheet
metal.
Manufacturing of sheet metals products
•What is the Material
•What is Manufacturing method based on the shape (design)
Function

•Design of product / planning manufacturing

•Development
Design •Planning raw materials / machines used etc

•Cutting
•Bending / punching / blanking / flange making / embossing Or Rolling and cone making
Shaping

•Selection of the most appropriate way for joining the Sheetmetal parts
Assembly

•Painting
Surface
treatment
The following tools are commonly used for sheet-
metal work:
• Hand shears or snips
• Hammers
• Cutting tools
• Measuring tools
• Miscellaneous hand tools such as chisels,vice, groovers, seamers,
rivet sets and hand punches.
Hand shaers
• They resemble with pair of
scissors and are used like them
to cut thin soft metal sheets of
20 gauge or thinner. They are
required to size and shape the
sheets. They can make straight
or circular cuts.
 • Some is used for leveling and smoothing a sheet metal joint ,
• Some is used for stretching sheet.
• Some is used to close down joint edges of sheets metal part.
Hammers Some is used for hollowing sheet metal part. It is used for
generating sharp radii also.
• Some is used for forming riveted heads.
• Planishing hammer. Planishing hammer is used for removing
small marks or indentations from the sheet metal job surface
and to true the shape of the work. It smoothens off the finished
sheet metal work.
• Soft hammer or Mallets. Mallets ( (g)) used during working
with soft metal sheets. They may be of wood, rubber or raw
hide. A mallet strikes a blow with the minimum damage to the
surface. In sheet metal work, the commonly used mallets are
bossing mallet, tinman’s mallet ( (h)) and rawhide mallet ( (i)).
Cutting Tools
• Sheet metal shop uses cutting tools, Commonly used cutting tools
involve: types of files, chisels, scraper and hacksaws. Some of the
commonly used cutting tools are discussed as under.
File
• 1. Files.

• 2. Chisels.

• 3. Scrapers. These are flat, hook;

triangular, half round types.
• Vice :Used to hold sheets in case
any fixing of workpiece is needed

• 4. Hacksaws. Hacksaw used in

sheet metal shop may be hand
hacksaw or power hacksaw.
Measuring Tools
• There are a fairly large number of measuring tools used in sheet
metal shop,. The most commonly used measuring tools are given as
under.
• 1. Folding rule
• 2. Circumference rule
• 3. Steel rule
• 4. Vernier caliper
• 5. Micrometer
• 6. Thickness gauge
Miscellaneous Hand Tools

1. Steel square
2. Straight edge
3. Divider
4. Scriber
5. Trammel points
6. Soldering iron
7. Pliers