General Information About Sheet Metal Part Modeling

Sheet-Metal Design

General

  • Sheet metal parts refer to parts made by cutting and bending sheet metal, which can be used to produce flattened drawings for machining tools.
  • In Vertex G4, sheet metal part modeling tools need the add-on option Sheet Metal Design. In Vertex G4 Plant, the option is always included.

How to start a sheet metal part

  1. Sketch a line or chain of lines and extrude it into a sheet metal part.

  2. Sketch a "piece of sheet metal", extrude it to the thickness of the sheet metal, and then convert the part into a sheet metal part.

  3. Get a suitable shape as the first feature of the part from the Sheet_metal library.

  4. Model a part where planar surfaces and cylinder surfaces (rounds) alternate and use the function Tangential Offset.

  5. Use the surface of another (jig) part in the assembly by copying it with the function Faces > Copy faces, and convert the surfaces to a volume model and further to a sheet metal part.

  6. Sketch a line and revolve it to a sheet metal part.

  7. Generate a sheet metal model from a 2D drawing.

Tools related to sheet metal parts

Add Bend Radius

  • Add Bend Radius
  • The function should be used when the line chain has been extruded into a sheet metal part without the rounds required for bending.

Add Flange

  • Add Flange

    The function adds flange features to selected edges of a sheet metal part.

Trim Edges

Trim a Corner

Open a Corner

Cut a Sheet

Step Bend

Flatten the model

Rebend a flattened model

  • Rebend a Flattened Part
  • This function is used when the 3D-flattened model has e.g. a cutout extrusion to the bending area or a corner has been trimmed (in the image).

Bend a sheet with a sketch line