NX Sheet Metal contains a powerful set of tools to design and optimize sheet metal parts. The designer now has at his disposal a complete set of tools to efficiently complete a sheet metal part design within the NX design environment. These tools allow for simple and fast design of a wide variety of sheet metal parts, taking into account their material and manufacturing processes.

Using NX Sheet Metal, parts can be created by using industry best practices and uniform workflows. Standard bending calculations, sheet metal features and advanced analysis tools all contribute to improving quality and reducing the cost of sheet metal parts. In addition, an accurate sheet metal pattern resulting from the design is correctly passed on to manufacturing and suppliers.

Features of NX Sheet Metal

Consider some of the features of the latest version of NX Sheet Metal

Easy design changes

Consider how easy it is make changes in NX Sheet Metal designs. This applies to Joggles that are offset from a portion of a tab, or a flange face. You can go from this:

To this:

or, from this:

to this:

In less than a minute using NX Sheet Metal. And that is only the beginning.

Flange function capability

• Multi Edge Flange – Multiple instances via list-based edge selection
• Each item list supports
  • Multiple edges
  • Intelligent internal mitering as needed
  • Common parameters
• Bend reliefs for bend outside

Flat Pattern

• New options for flat solid and flat pattern
  • Orient flat using CSYS
  • Associative
  • Fix at Current Timestamp
• Bend List command for edit of Bend Sequence ID and Bend Name
• Ability to filter out holes smaller than specified diameter

Convert to Sheet Metal

• Local conversion
• Corner cleanup
• Dynamic preview

Tab Function

• Supports sketch with internal loops to create cutouts
• Secondary Tab also supports sketch with multiple outer loops
• Target body selection for Secondary Tab
• Support Base Tab with bends
• For each bend, user can input Inset, bend radius and neutral factor
• Can constrain to, or include curves from reference faces in the sketch while creating brackets

Material and Bend Table

• Material driven tooling selection to define bend properties (Bend Radius (BR) & Neutral Factor(NF) )
• Ability to define secondary lookup table from main material table, material/tooling and process driven bend properties selection. (Angle based BR and NF)
• Bend Allowance Table, Bend Deduction Table, Bend Deduction Formula, DIN6935 Formula
• Assigning part attribute through material table to carry information across applications

Visual Reporting

• Sheet Metal Body Property – highlights sheet metal bodies in an assembly or in a part
• Sheet Metal Face Property – highlights sheet metal faces using combinations of sheet metal face types, bend angle, bend radius and neutral factor