Sheet Metal Design

[mplanchard]

Find a sheet metal vendor for some advice. You also have price to worry about too.

You are in the Dallas area? Go to swugn.net and see when the next local SolidWorks local user group meeting is. You may also get some advice.

When Investigating analysis go to tools, addins and turn on SolidWorks Simulation. You will then see simulation tutorials under Help.

You want to use shell elements. These will provide good results. Also sketch profiles to indicate large concentrations of mass, such as a motor. Then use Insert curve, split curve. Now the area bounded by the sketch can accept a distributed load. Marie

[Curt Henderson]

This topic is right up our teams alley. Check out www.huntingtonrobotics.org for our photos on our past robots.

We build our bots from .040" prepainted aluminum sheet using a technique called Monocoque. We will be releasing a video (most likely after the build season) showing our methods of construction so everyone can gain from our experience. Our robots are traditionally light weight and very durable as seen in videos of past regionals. We form the material to provide the outer shape and then use internal bulkheads to support the outer shell to provide the necessary strength of the members. We use the thin material so we can bend it with hand tools and it is alot less expensive than than the thicker materials and it still provides plenty of strength for what we need to do.

Feel free to send any questions our way, we will try to answer all questions that you may have.

Curt

[tim-tim]

I know what we do is go off of previous years experiences (both our own and other teams) and base the design from those lessons. I can tell you that many teams do not go through the FE Analysis previously mentioned because it is complex and most schools can't support it.

However, JVN will tell you it is about iterative design. If you have the luxury, do some testing. Find out where your design fails and fix it, then go back to the drawing board and make it better. Then go back and find where you can remove material or place a pocket or hole pattern to reduce weight in the design.