Can do sheet metal stampings in hours instead of weeks.
Ford rapid prototyping sheet metal.
Ford engineers are developing a highly flexible first of its kind patented technology to rapidly form sheet metal parts for low volume production applicati.
Allowing them to fabricate a three dimensional part from a two dimensional sheet of metal in just hours.
See how ford does it with this short video video.
Sadly stamping can take up to 6 8 weeks from the time the design leaves the cad station so it s not great for prototyping.
We would like to show you a description here but the site won t allow us.
Ford reveals new rapid prototyping and low volume production techniques w video.
Over the last 100 years or so the ford motor company has gotten really good at stamping sheet metal parts.
Ford calls this ford freeform fabrication technology f3t.
Rapid prototyping rp techniques in the sheet metal forming industry is developed to quickly test the form and fit of new sheet metal products on a prototype basis as well as for production runs characterized by small lot sizes.