Air Bending Of Sheet Metal

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

Air bending of sheet metal.

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. The diagram shows one such mechanism. Bending is one of the most common sheet metal fabrication operations. Different bend angles can be obtained using the same set of tools.

Also known as press braking flanging die bending folding and edging this method is used to deform a material to an angular shape. The force must exceed the material s yield strength to achieve a plastic deformation. 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 air bending a bend angle is formed by driving the punch into the sheet metal to a specific position within the die opening.

In this process the workpiece comes in contact with the outside edges of the die as well as the punch tip. The gauge inside radius die opening and minimum flange length are all interconnected through different equations and relationships the air bend force. Air bending is the most common type of 3 types of bending used in sheet metal shops today. The punch tip and the die shoulders fig.

Being able to read a bend force chart is crucial for any brake press operator and sheet metal engineer. 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. Air bending also known as free bending is the most common way for bending sheet metal because of its flexibility. With air bending fig.

The tooling only touches the material at three points. 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. 3a even less contact is made with the metal than with bottom bending. Refer to the chart for values for folder as well as various press brake tooling combinations.

Use the minimum bend dimension values in the charts below for your minimum closeness of cutout to a bend. For this reason the actual angle of the tooling is relatively unimportant. Miserable to bend cracking is very common and cold bending will always weaken the metal. The average hack requires at least one angled metal part and the best tool to make one is still the good ol press brake.