Rapid prototyping for sheet metal parts posted in the technical forum.
Ford rapid prototyping sheet metal.
Ford engineers are developing a highly flexible first of its kind patented technology to rapidly form sheet metal parts for low volume production applicati.
Can do sheet metal stampings in hours instead of weeks.
See how ford does it with this short video video.
To speed up prototyping ford has created a rapid process they call the ford freeform fabrication technology f3t for short.
Rapid prototyping rp techniques in the sheet metal forming industry is developed to quickly test the form and fit of new sheet metal products on a prototype basis as well as for production runs characterized by small lot sizes.
Sadly stamping can take up to 6 8 weeks from the time the design leaves the cad station so it s not great for prototyping.
This article provides an overview of some of the technologies used for rp and low volume production of sheet metal.
Over the last 100 years or so the ford motor company has gotten really good at stamping sheet metal parts.
Allowing them to fabricate a three dimensional part from a two dimensional sheet of metal in just hours.