Posted: 19 March 2009 at 3:35pm | IP Logged

Laiju, you are definately correct that the K-factor changes with metal thickness. I am relatively new to Pro/E sheetmetal so if you figure this out, please post the solution. Thanks 

Posted: 26 March 2009 at 8:38am | IP Logged

The K-factor depends on the material, the type of bending operation (coining, air-bending).

K = (t/T)

t: distance from inside face to neutral sheet

T: Material Thickness

And is typically between 0.3 to 0.5. For most types of steels it is around 0.33 to 0.4.

I extensively work on sheet metal and i use the value K-Factor = 0.31831 and Y-Factor = 0.5. It gives pretty accurate results. I use WF4.

there is no formula or relation to determine K-factor.

hope this helps u. let me know.

regrds

-Nawaz

Posted: 30 March 2009 at 11:07am | IP Logged

Thanks for the response. I have created my own k-factor calculator using VB and it works very well. However, as Laiju was asking, how can I make my k-factor for say, 16 ga steel, automatically appear when .060" metal thickness is used, rather than having to manually put the k-factor in for each bend?

Posted: 31 March 2009 at 3:32am | IP Logged

You could have your VB program output the information to a file, then create a mapkey to retrieve the file via the sheetmetal parameters dialog.

Alternatively, convert your VB program to Autoit. This could create the file and start a mapkey to load the created file.

Posted: 09 April 2009 at 11:25am | IP Logged

You could try using material files.  A material file allows you to list a Y-factor or Bend Table as part of it's properties.

So, if you had a seperate material file for each guage of steel (and all other materials you are bending), you could try using that to control your K-factors.  So, you would be creating a kind of stock Sheetmetal library.

If that works, you could create a series of "seed parts" to copy from to create new sheetmetal parts depending on what material you want to start with to create the new part.

You would have to see if changing the material would change the K-factor appropriately.  (Of course, you still have to change the material thickness.)  You could probably create mapkeys or applications to manage this process.

Good luck,

JD