Kerf Bending – An Experimental Study on the Design Parameters

Kerf bending is a method to bend rigid materials by weakening and making it flexible through a series of cuts. It is a process well suited to integrated digital design and manufacturing process. To provide useful data for the straightforward and optimal design of kerf-bending products with fixed curved surfaces, the objective of the present work is to obtain the relations between the minimum radii of bending curves and kerf density concerning the most used patterns, material and thickness by experimental measurements. Besides, a simple workflow is also presented to illustrate how an integrated design and manufacturing solution can be achieved rationally, avoiding as much as possible trial-and-error process. This is especially important for the learning process of the students related to Engineering Design Graphics (EDG) and Fast Prototyping (FP) subjects as a reference for their practical design works.