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Strengthening ribs are a common way to add strength to a sheet metal part. When the material is deformed to create the ribs, the effective material thickness increases, strengthening the material. These can be a life-saver, especially if you are using the minimum material thickness to control costs. Mate has two ways to add strengthening ribs: Mate’s Rollerball™ tool and a beaded emboss tool.

Mate’s Rollerball tool allows fabricators to reduce sheet metal thickness without compromising the strength and rigidity of the product. Rollerball takes advantage of punch presses that can operate in the X and Y axis with the ram down. The tool forms the sheet metal by “pinching” the material between two ball bearings in the upper assembly and one ball bearing in the lower assembly. Doing so creates the stiffening rib that can be used to strengthen the sheet metal. The shape of the form is the result of programs created in the punch press programming system. Mate Rollerball is available in popular tool styles including Ultraform for thick turret, Trumpf style, Murata Wiedemann, thin turret and Salvagnini.

The other way to add ribs is with a beaded emboss. Embossing operations are commonly used in sheet metal and vary in purpose and function; one such function is to add strengthening ribs. A common way to add strength to a sheet metal part is to introduce a bend or beaded emboss. As the material is deformed, the effective material thickness increases and the material becomes stronger.

If you want to learn more, you can download a Solution Bulletin on strengthening ribs that includes a case study of how a Mate customer used a beaded emboss tool in the production of a cable management system walkway. You can also watch an animation to see how Rollerball forms ribs in the sheet metal at our YouTube channel.

Whatever your punch press needs are, contact your local Mate Precision Technologies Sales Engineer or call Mate Precision Technologies and speak to an applications specialist to help with your tooling request.