Tolerance reasoning and set-up planning for brakeforming

Brakeforming is widely applied in high-variety small-batch manufacturing of sheet metal components to form bends that have a straight axis and a constant radius. The process typically involves a relatively large number of set-ups. The paper describes the appropriate search technique to solve the set-up planning problem as well as some of the manufacturing rules that can be applied. Special attention is paid to the accuracy aspect in the selection of set-ups for non-90° bend angles. As an example, the set-up planning procedure is demonstrated for a sheet metal bracket.