From shrink to stretch: making sheet-metal parts with much less scrap

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Development of manufacturing technologies for sheet metal processing with minimal waste, and engineering design of machines to implement these processes. Almost 25% of emissions associated with car manufacture are due to the production of sheet metal for vehicle bodies, with nearly half of these emissions related to waste: almost half the sheet metal purchased is trimmed off and scrapped. The folding-shearing process for "shrink" features previously invented in the Department has shown a reduction in waste by at least 75%, and hence a reduction of 25-40% in the embodied emissions of car body production. The extension of the folding-shearing methodology to "stretch" corners, through the new tooling examined in this PhD, could ultimately extend this benefit to a much greater range of car-body parts, making it truly transformative in the field of sheet forming, a major global industry.