About Stainless Steel Sheet Metal FabricationAbout Stainless Steel Sheet Metal Fabrication

In today's trend of pursuing high-quality life and environmental protection, stainless steel has become an important material for home, construction and many other fields due to its superior corrosion resistance, long-lasting stability and modern aesthetic appearance. It is not only widely used in daily life, but also has won the favor of more and more consumers and industry experts due to its environmental performance and sustainability.

1. What is Sheet Metal Fabrication?

Sucelsteel is a manufacturer of stainless steel processing customization. With years of industry experience and technical accumulation, it provides customized services to customers to ensure that each product can perfectly meet the customer's design needs and quality standards. Whether in residential buildings, commercial spaces or personalized home design, Youshanmei Environmental Technology can provide durable and visually impactful stainless steel products through innovative design concepts and high-quality craftsmanship.

Sheet metal fabrication is a process of processing sheet metal to create various shapes and structures. This process mainly involves cutting, stamping, bending, stretching and other processes of thin and flat metal sheets (usually between 0.5 mm and 6 mm thick) to form the desired products or parts.

The main technologies of sheet metal processing include:

Material preparation:

Choosing the right stainless steel sheet is the first step in sheet metal processing. Usually, the right thickness and specification of stainless steel sheet are selected according to the function and requirements of the product.

According to the design on the drawing, the stainless steel sheet is cut into the required size using laser cutting, shearing and other technologies. Accurate cutting can ensure the smooth progress of subsequent processes.

Laser cutting:

Shearing is to act on the metal sheet along the predetermined lines through the upper and lower cutters on the punch press. Shearing is suitable for large-scale cutting work and can quickly and efficiently cut the metal sheet into the required shape.

Further trimming and grinding may be required after shearing to ensure smooth edges of the product.

Bending and Folding

Bending is an important step in sheet metal processing and involves the use of a bending machine. The most common types of bending techniques are V-shaped, U-shaped and channel-shaped forms. When bending, factors such as the thickness of the sheet, the bending radius, and the angle need to be considered to ensure the accuracy and quality of the workpiece.

Punching:

Punching is to use a punch press to press the steel plate through the upper and lower dies to press out the hole. Punching is suitable for high-precision, high-volume production and can quickly complete the punching of holes.

Welding:

Welding is the process of connecting multiple sheet metal parts together. Since stainless steel is a corrosion-resistant material, the composition of the alloy requires a special welding method. Welding work is widely used in special stainless steel products. Full welding and spot welding are more commonly used, but there are also obvious differences. After the full welding process, the surface of stainless steel is beautiful and complete, without welding spots and gaps. However, after the spot welding process, there are still spots or gaps on the surface.

The parts after welding connection need to check the welding quality to ensure that the joint strength and appearance meet the standards.

Deburring, grinding and surface treatment may be required after welding to improve the finish and corrosion resistance of the welded joint.

These steps constitute the basic process of sheet metal processing, and metal sheets are usually transformed into various functional parts or products through these processes. The whole process requires high-precision equipment and skilled operation to ensure the quality of the final product.

Sheet metal processing is particularly effective in stainless steel manufacturing. Through cutting, folding, laser, welding and other technologies, you can manufacture metal products you want, such as stainless steel profiles, stainless steel furniture, stainless steel screens, etc. This processing method combines the ductility of metal and various design techniques to produce parts with complex shapes and diverse functions, and is widely favored by manufacturers.

2. The following aspects need to be noted：

High cutting force and high temperature

Stainless steel has high strength, high tangential stress and plastic deformation during cutting, so the cutting force is high. In addition, the thermal conductivity of the material is extremely poor, which causes the cutting temperature of stainless steel processing to increase, and the high temperature is often concentrated in the narrow area near the cutting edge of the tool, thereby accelerating the wear of the tool.

Severe work hardening

Stainless steel and some high-temperature alloy stainless steels are austenitic and have a strong tendency to work harden during cutting, which is usually several times that of ordinary carbon steel. Cutting in the work hardening area will shorten the tool life.

Easy to stick to the knife

Both austenitic stainless steel and martensitic stainless steel have the characteristics of strong and tough chips and high cutting temperature during processing. When the strong chips flow through the front cutting edge, sticking and welding will occur, affecting the surface roughness of sheet metal processing parts.

Metal furniture such as stainless steel tables, stainless steel tableware, etc., the processing procedures of these products generally require laser, bending, welding, grooving, grinding, polishing, and multiple processing steps to obtain the final stainless steel products. The common stainless steel products on the market are designed according to customer needs, or produced and processed according to samples or drawings provided by users.

Here is an example：