Reconfigurable V-Die Bending for Computational Sheet Metal Fabrication — Material-Aware Computational Forming with Reconfigurable Tooling
Sheet metal is a versatile architectural material widely used for applications ranging from facades and roofs to spatial cladding. Depending on its specific properties, external forces can plastically deform these two-dimensional planes into three-dimensional components with distinct folds and structural depth.
Design concept
This undergraduate project explored sheet-metal forming as a computational design-to-fabrication process. Arch-shaped geometry was developed with Kangaroo and subdivided into fabrication units using bounding-box-based dimensional analysis.
Fold-line orientation, bend angles, material limitations, and reconfigurable V-die tooling were investigated alongside robot-assisted fabrication. The work aimed to translate planar metal sheets into three-dimensional components for lightweight architectural assemblies.
In retrospect, it provides an early foundation for research on material-aware fabrication, geometric rationalization, and adaptive robotic execution.
Making process
The initial design treats the metal as a two-dimensional plane, utilizing the position, orientation, and arrangement of fold lines as the primary geometric operations. These lines segment the continuous surface, allowing the sheet to bend along local axes to generate foundational three-dimensional units.
The core experiments investigate:
- Fold-Line Orientation: How varying directions and arrangements influence the resulting 3D geometry.
- Bend Angle: The range of achievable folding angles and the methodology for establishing target angles.
- Formability Limits: Material constraints such as post-bend cracking, excessive deformation, or geometric instability.
- Tooling Adaptability: The capacity of fixed or variable mold configurations to accommodate different sheet dimensions.
- Robot-Assisted Forming: The integration of computationally planned angles with physical tooling for precise sheet manipulation and bending.