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

开发以最小浪费进行金属板材加工的制造技术，以及实施这些工艺的机器的工程设计。与汽车制造相关的排放中，近25%是由于车身钣金的生产，其中近一半的排放与废物有关：几乎一半的钣金被修剪和报废。该部门以前发明的用于“收缩”特征的折叠-剪切工艺已显示出至少75%的浪费减少，因此车身生产的隐含排放减少了25-40%。通过本博士研究的新工具，将折叠剪切方法扩展到“拉伸”拐角，最终可以将这种优势扩展到更大范围的车身零件，使其在板材成形领域真正具有变革性，这是一个主要的全球产业。

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.