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

开发制造技术，使钣金加工产生最小的浪费，并进行机械工程设计，以实现这些过程。与汽车制造相关的近25%的排放是由于车身钣金的生产，其中近一半的排放与废物有关：几乎一半的采购钣金被削减和报废。该部门先前发明的用于“收缩”特征的折叠-剪切工艺显示，废物减少了至少75%，从而减少了汽车车身生产中隐含排放量的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”角，最终可以将这种优势扩展到更大范围的车身零件，使其真正改变板材成型领域，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.