Sheetmetal Joggle Bends

[thomasjamesmathew]

Hi everyone!

I'm trying to create a joggle bend on the edge of a sheetmetal part for the purpose of attaching it to the edge of another sheetmetal part with the edges flush. I have a horrible workflow of guesswork and sketches with direct dimensions (i.e. not in terms of sheet thickness) and I'm wondering if anyone has a good way of doing it? (Image below for reference)

My current workflow is to cut the flat face with a sketch specifying the width of the flange and the depth from the edge it should start (manually calculated). Then I do a flange at 45deg inward, for a distance of sqrt(2) times sheet thickness, and then another flange at 45deg to that to create the recessed tab as you see it there.

I believe other packages have a workflow to do this (at least semi-) automatically?

Appreciate any help or discussion - thanks!

[alexhardie]

If you go into modify > Change Parameters and find the name of the thickness under sheet metal rules (in my case it's "d1"), you can create a new parameter called JBendHeight equal to sqrt(2)*d1 and specify that as the height of the first 45 degree bend.  You should be able to then reuse that parameter as needed within the same part.  Personally I wasn't able to recreate 2 45 degree bends that close together, but it looks like you got past that part.

[alexhardie]

Actually, here's a better way.  Create a parameter called JBendAngle, I set it to 30 degrees, then create another parameter called JBendHeight and set it to d1/sin(JBendAngle).  When you create the first flange, input JBendHeight as the height and JBendAngle as the angle.  In the second flange, input JBendAngle for the angle, and whatever you want for the height.  You can then change the angle as necessary to give a more realistic gradual bend without having to use super tight bend radii.