Page 34 - MetalForming May 2014
P. 34
Designing for Dollars
Advances in optimization have enabled simulation software to cut weeks off of development time. Within a day, sophisticated solving work can take a simulated part (such as this vehicle fender, left) and optimize it (right) with the ideal draw-bead placement. Photo courtesy of ETA.
Complementing Designer Expertise
Placed in the hands of an experi- enced designer, die-design software reaches its pinnacle and provides an excellent cost- and time-saving tool.
For example, “two designers can pro-
ceed with part nesting in two different ways,” explains David Lindemann, application engineer for Cimatron Technologies Inc., Novi, MI. “One approach is to eliminate as much scrap as possible and form as tightly as you can. The other considers the tool, not-
ing that parts placed tightly together results in fragile tooling. Some soft- ware may provide every possible nest- ing configuration along with scrap- percentage factors, and the designer can choose with the goal of achieving the optimal scrap-percentage factor
32 MetalForming/May 2014
www.metalformingmagazine.com
