Manufacturing a product involves three important processes, which is almost true for every material:
Connecting, Forming and Parting.
If you build a product, it is useful to keep in mind how it will be build. Source
In the path of product development, the actual manufacturing will come closer and closer. While a unique design and smooth optic is a great thing, a design which is hard to produce unnecessarily increases costs, trouble and time.
Keeping the worker in mind that actually has to build your dream is thus an important task. Your might also not doing yourself a favor by investing time in a abstract design and hard to build product.
Connecting two parts: part A and part B are combined to part C
In the beginning of time, man made the first weapon by tying a rock to a stick. Chances are high that your product will use this process.
Welding is one of the most important methods to connect two metal pieces. It is the equivalent of gluing with metal. Especially in the heavy industries (Ships) and buildings it is easier to weld a lot of smaller parts to one big product.
Soldering is especially famous in the electronics industry. All the electrical components are fixed onto a circuit board by soldering. The solder is a metal that melts at relatively low temperatures, hardens quickly and is of course conductive.
Gluing parts together sounds like something from kindergarten, but is actually a common practice in the industry. A glued connection can reduce transferred vibrations, be water tight and cheap. In comparison to welding it is also worth mentioning that the connected parts don't get heated. The heat from welding can change the material structure and change the composition. This might weaken the material or slow down manufacturing, because a cool down is needed.
Screwing two parts together is on top of the favorite connecting processes in the metal industry. While it needs more parts and the holes for the screws can weaken the construction, it has one big advantage: The connection can be undone without a big problem.
Some parts just fit together by force. This wisdom also applies to manufacturing. Ball bearings can be pressed on a shaft that is too big for them by pre heating the bearing or cooling down the shaft. When the part returns to room temperature and takes its original shape, the connection will hold through pure force.
Sometimes, something just needs to be taken away: part B taken away from part A makes part C
Often a part has just too much material. The desired product is hidden. Every kid probably tried himself in wood carving with his pocket knife, looking at the piece of wood and wondering what shape it may hide.
Machining is probably the mostly used process in manufacturing: maybe because it is always easier to take something away than add something.
Modern milling machines can manufacture an abundance of forms with very high accuracy, completely automatic. This advantage also comes with a high price tag.
Turning can produce almost every rotational shape. A turning machine is also quite affordable and can also be found in private workshops. This makes it possible to have your product build quite cheap.
The all time favorite for producing holes. While it can only do that, a drill is mostly available in almost every household.
Not only used in woodworking, it is also used in the metal industry. It is a cheap and easy method to separate a part in a straight line without much trouble.
A water jet, controlled by a computer positioning system, can cut out shapes out of nearly every flat material. Similar systems with laser or plasma exist, but the water jet has the ability to cut without heating the metal, thus not changing the material properties. While the water jet operates with very high pressure, it is not the liquid that does the cutting, but fine particles mixed into it.
Forming a part is special, because nothing is added or taken away: part A is formed by method B to receive part C
Forming metal uses high force processes if done cold, but even heated to appropriate temperatures the forces are still bigger then working with other materials.
Definitely an old method, that uses the ability of metal to be easier formable when heated. Hits with a hammer, hand or hydraulic, form the metal into shape. After cooling, it will return to its hardness and still keep its form.
Already known from the last article, rolling can also performed by using ingots. Similar to forging, the metal gets heated and then formed. Difference is that it is rolled into shape, which also has the benefit of aligning the crystal structure.
Extrusion is one of the forming methods using the most force. The metal gets pulled/pushed through a die, which is giving it its profile. The benefit is the surface finish and the possible complexity of the profile.
Bending can also be done cold, but even a thumb thick bar can easily bent if heated above 700 °C. The risk of breaking the material is also very low. Sometimes, the profile doesn't allow it. In this case it has to be done in small increments.
Like cutting with scissors, shearing encircles everything where the material is divided by to opposing presses.
It sounds really cool and luckily the process keeps its promise. A sheet metal is positioned between an explosive charge and a form. Submerged in water for better force transmission the charge gets ignited. The explosive force rams the sheet metal into the form. While this is an obviously complicated process, it has the benefit that the deformation is fast and can be done with highly detailed forms.
Here shown are just a few manufacturing processes. It is hard to keep an overview, especially of specialized techniques. More methods get developed and old ones more defined. But as it is easier to tackle problems early on, it is necessary to have manufacturing of your product in mind.
If your product demands complicated processes, which might be necessary, see that it is still possible to do. Better to change the product in the beginning than finding out that it is impossible to manufacture.
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