V-Groove Aluminum

[Anonymous]

We are getting ready to begin v-grooving our aluminum panels to allow for sharper corners.  This process cuts a 90° V into the backside of the panel centered on the bend line, removing a percentage of the metal.  When formed the two edges of the V close up.

Is there a way in Inventor 2011 to do this without having to jump through hoops?

[mcgyvr]

Have you though about simply changing aluminum alloys to one that will form tighter?

Are you not worried about the stress cracks that WILL show up? 

What is the reason to add considerable cost solely for a tighter radius?

I'd never do it for the reasons above but..

I would simply handle this with a properly documented process and a bend note versus modeling it in Inventor. 

[Anonymous]

Changing the alloy will not achieve the goal of the product and may cause the panel to fall out of engineering specs.

V-grooving reduces the chance of any stress cracks.

The added cost is not relavent since we pass that cost onto the customer.  This is what the architect wants and it's a very common practice in the metal panel industry.

And overriding all of my flat pattern dimensions pretty much makes using Inventor worthless.  I might as well go back to drawing everything in straight AutoCAD.

[mcgyvr]

This is how I would handle it. 

Do not model the V-groove. Like you have found that is extra work and Inventor is not build to do that so you need to use workarounds that take more time than its worth.

Then simply change your sheet metal styles to have a style like ".125" aluminum v-grooved". And have its k-factor/bend radius to be correct for a v-grooved sheet flat pattern dimensions.  Use Inventors regular flange commands as you would normally with that tighter bend radius/corrected k-factor.  

Then put a note/specification or whatever on the drawing that all bends shall be v-grooved or whatever. You can create a sketched symbol if you want to show what a common v-groove would look like.

Not many people v-groove for many reasons so Inventor does not handle it (all about the demand).. But there is really NO reason to actually try to model that v-groove in Inventor. Inventor is a tool. Use it as best as you can but don't try to kill yourself doing extra work just to get a "cute" picture out of Inventor. 

[Anonymous]

I wasn't trying to get a cute picture.

Altering the Kfactor and the bend radius works fine for panels where all bends are grooved, however, there are occasions where you groove only specific bends.  (such as when there are face bends as well as non-face bends)

Many people v-groove.  There are production machines designed and sold specifically to v-groove panels.  So the demand is there.

But you've answered my question, Inventor doesn't have a way to incorporate v-grooves into it's models.

Thanks, you've saved me a lot of research time.

[Anonymous]

mcgyvr's approach of adding notes on the drawing is the way I would handle this task as well.

But it you must have the v-grooves modeled, I'd suggest creating a punch feature with a through-all cut distance to do this. If I have a chance I'll work up an example.

[Anonymous]

is the goal to have these modled just in the flat, or in the folded modle and the flat pattern?

[mcgyvr]

I've never used the bend table functionality (or bend forumlas) but I would think that would solve your problem of some flanges being v-grooved and some not.. They would have a different bend radius and I would think you should be able to get the flat pattern dims correct.

[Anonymous]

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@mcgyvr wrote:

I've never used the bend table functionality (or bend forumlas) but I would think that would solve your problem of some flanges being v-grooved and some not.. They would have a different bend radius and I would think you should be able to get the flat pattern dims correct.

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That was a thought I had a few minutes ago as well: just set up a "near zero" bend radius Unfold Rule to get the sharp corners, and another for the standard bends, and then edit each flange to use the Unfold Rule as needed. I think that'd be pretty painless.

[SBix26]

You can apply different unfold rules to individual bends within the same part, so mcgyvr's approach should work just fine.  You have one rule for the default bends and another rule for the v-grooved bends.  Just pick the rule you need for each bend.