Good Aluminum Sheet For Bending

Miserable to bend cracking is very common and cold bending will always weaken the metal.

Good aluminum sheet for bending.

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. With the aid of a straight edge and a sharp knife score both sides of the aluminium sheet. This is done through the application of force on a workpiece. The best aluminum alloys for bending come down to series 3xxx and series 5xxx and sometimes series 6xxx.

Also known as press braking flanging die bending folding and edging this method is used to deform a material to an angular shape. From a bending perspective it s always best to bend these parts in an annealed state and then temper them to the correct condition. 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.

In this post we ll explain it to you. The top 3 aluminum alloys for being are the 3003 which has medium strength and the best cold workability the 5052 which is the highest strength alloy of the more common non heat treatable grades and the 6061 which is one of the more. Bending is one of the most common sheet metal fabrication operations. 6061 t6 aluminum is tempered and notorious for not bending easily.

The force must exceed the material s yield strength to achieve a plastic deformation. This will give you a nice bend. 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. Which aluminum alloy bends the best is a a common question customers want the answer to.

This weakens the aluminium and creates a fracture line. Place the fracture line over the edge of a table and bend the overhang slightly downwards. Sheet aluminium can be cut without the need for a guillotine or tin snips which tend to deform the metal. Bending sheet metal by hand is a manageable task if the piece of sheet metal is small and thin enough to handle.

In high purity forms aluminum is soft and ductile. Highly formable and one of the best kinds of aluminum to bend.