Air Bending Of Sheet Metal

Highly formable and one of the best kinds of aluminum to bend.

Air bending of sheet metal.

For this reason the actual angle of the tooling is relatively unimportant. 3a even less contact is made with the metal than with bottom bending. Bending is one of the most common sheet metal fabrication operations. Refer to the chart for values for folder as well as various press brake tooling combinations.

The punch is then forced past the top of the die into the v opening without coming into contact with the bottom of the v. Miserable to bend cracking is very common and cold bending will always weaken the metal. The diagram shows one such mechanism. With air bending fig.

The gauge inside radius die opening and minimum flange length are all interconnected through different equations and relationships the air bend force. The tooling only touches the material at three points. Geometry of tooling imposes a minimum bend dimension. Use the minimum bend dimension values in the charts below for your minimum closeness of cutout to a bend.

An air bend force chart or force chart breaks down a number of key components of sheet metal bending in an easy to reference format. Being able to read a bend force chart is crucial for any brake press operator and sheet metal engineer. Different bend angles can be obtained using the same set of tools. Proper bending can be done with annealing the aluminum first although it s not an ideal candidate for formed parts.

Commonly used equipment include box and pan brakes brake presses and other specialized machine presses typical products that are made like this are boxes such as electrical enclosures and rectangular ductwork. The punch tip and the die shoulders fig. Also known as press braking flanging die bending folding and edging this method is used to deform a material to an angular shape. In this process the workpiece comes in contact with the outside edges of the die as well as the punch tip.

Bending is a manufacturing process that produces a v shape u shape or channel shape along a straight axis in ductile materials most commonly sheet metal. Air bending also known as free bending is the most common way for bending sheet metal because of its flexibility. The average hack requires at least one angled metal part and the best tool to make one is still the good ol press brake. Air bending is the most common type of 3 types of bending used in sheet metal shops today.