Air Bending Of Sheet Metal

Air bending is the most common type of 3 types of bending used in sheet metal shops today.

Air bending of sheet metal.

Miserable to bend cracking is very common and cold bending will always weaken the metal. This is done through the application of force on a workpiece. Bending is one of the most common sheet metal fabrication operations. Different bend angles can be obtained using the same set of tools.

In air bending a bend angle is formed by driving the punch into the sheet metal to a specific position within the die opening. The tooling only touches the material at three points. 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.

3a even less contact is made with the metal than with bottom bending. Being able to read a bend force chart is crucial for any brake press operator and sheet metal engineer. Proper bending can be done with annealing the aluminum first although it s not an ideal candidate for formed parts. In this process the workpiece comes in contact with the outside edges of the die as well as the punch tip.

Geometry of tooling imposes a minimum bend dimension. The average hack requires at least one angled metal part and the best tool to make one is still the good ol press brake. 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. Refer to the chart for values for folder as well as various press brake tooling combinations.

Air bending also known as free bending is the most common way for bending sheet metal because of its flexibility. The diagram shows one such mechanism. 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. With air bending fig.

The punch tip and the die shoulders fig. Highly formable and one of the best kinds of aluminum to bend. The force must exceed the material s yield strength to achieve a plastic deformation. 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.