When sheet metal parts are removed from die, and the forming forces released, material elasticity will often cause the part geometry to experience springback. The new springback prediction functionality in VISI 2017 R2 is designed to reduce the time and cost of a typical trial and error approach.
When a designer is validating the part for formability, a new graphical analysis representation mode will subdivide the results into six possible zones that occur during the forming process:
- Strong Wrinkle Tendency – slight stretch in one direction, and compensation in the other, with material thickening
- Wrinkling Tendency – stretch in one direction, and compression in the other, with slight material thickening, which may cause wrinkles to occur
- Low Strain – minimal stretch or compression in either the major or minor directions
- Safe – area below the Forming Limit Curve where failure is unlikely to occur
- Marginal – the area between the safe and fail zones, where the forming process is marginally safe
- Fail – the area above the Forming Limit Curve where splitting and localised thinning is likely to occur.
Amongst several items of new and enhanced functionality for both CAD and CAM processes, the new 2.5-Axis Pocketing Strategy in VISI 2017 R2 improves toolpath quality, optimises toolpaths on open features, and allows machining from a stock model.
Based on the Pocketing technology, the new Remachining Strategy inherits the same enhancements and advantages. Rest area recognition is achieved automatically, based on the reference operations. A new residual stock algorithm is used for both 2D and 3D operations and the Dynamic Incremental Stock command.
The new Electrode machining module automates the electrode design-to-manufacturing process. Where a substantial number of electrodes need to be machined, the new module automates the process, saving a considerable amount of time.
Other enhancements introduced in VISI 2017 R2 include:
- New Product Launcher which is a customisable software starting window which provides access to the complete suite of installed VISI applications. The launcher also has dedicated areas for the users most commonly used tools which can be added by drag & drop, as well as displaying the VISI social media channels.
- Improved user experience with high quality toolbars to support 4k monitors.
- Updated CAD translators to support the latest geometry formats.
- Improved Wire EDM technology and software fixes.
