The drawbead helps control how the sheet enters the forming region. You can model its physical shape, but PAMSTAMP also lets you use an equivalent force-based representation.
I am starting with that equivalent model here. If your example already imported a drawbead, follow along by opening its definition. You don’t have to create a second one just for the tutorial.
Select the bead path
Open Drawbead Editor and go to Location. Select or import the bead curves and display them with the supporting tool.
Make sure you selected the bead path. A blank outline or trim line may look convincing until you notice where it goes. The equivalent model projects its line onto the supporting tool.
Connect the tools and sheet
On Tools, select the projection object and the tool that receives the opening force, usually the blankholder. Display the opening direction and see whether it agrees with the model.
Action radius describes which nearby elements are affected. It is not the radius of a manufactured bead, despite the tempting name.
On Blank, choose the sheet being restrained. Use a uniform definition when that matches your exercise.
Display the force along the bead
Review how restraint and uplift are entered or calculated. If automatic update is off, changing the geometry inputs means you must update the force values yourself.
Display the restraining forces and follow the curve from end to end. An unexpected gap or sudden change is a reason to reopen the definition.
The editor can estimate the total opening force too. Keep in mind what that number represents, especially with more complicated blank arrangements.
Click Apply before moving to another bead; otherwise, edits can be lost. That small step is easy to forget when there are several similar curves on the screen.
We now have the bead’s location, tools and blank connected. For different restraint along the path, continue later with non-uniform drawbeads.
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[…] the first drawbead post, we used a uniform definition. Now suppose one part of the path needs different restraint. We can […]