Bending Aluminum Sheet With The Grain

Which aluminum alloy bends the best is a a common question customers want the answer to.

Bending aluminum sheet with the grain.

Local sheet metal shop not an aircraft shop experienced cracking on folding up a simple bracket. Grain direction bend line should go across the grain for the best bend having said that a typical sharp 90 bend on a piece of 1 8 aluminum sheet should be a minimum 1 8 inside radius use either 3003 or 5052 ideally the bend line should go across the grain. Bending sheet metal can be useful if it s used to build different shapes and different products. This is because sharper or tighter bends can be made across the grain without cracking.

In high purity forms aluminum is soft and ductile. When bending high strength materials such as. In this episode we are going to be looking at bending aluminum sheet metal for aircraft. Bending is a delicate and demanding process most of the time and common fabricating processes require a degree of formability that make your choice of proper alloy critical.

Minimum inside bend radius is also larger when bending with the grain longitudinal than across the grain transverse. A metal s grain direction is usually only a factor when bending however. In this post we ll explain it to you. Has anybody heard of bending sheet stock 063 5052 h32 aluminum with grain direction on the diagonal.

Bending with the grain gives a different result than bending against it. Bending the sheet metal longitudinally with the grain allows those grains to separate at the grain boundaries. The harder and thicker the metal the greater the minimum bend radius. This will give you a nice bend.

In addition the grain direction needs to be considered when the bend radius is less than twice the thickness depending on the material and its hardness. To predict the material s behavior accurately during bending especially at the press brake you need to accommodate for the grain direction. In particular we will take an in depth look at the theory making a. Grain direction also plays into the amount of springback you can expect.

Understand different metals have different minimum bend radius to thickness ratios.