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Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

(OP)
Folks-
I'm in the process of writing a drafting/design manual for our department and need to provide minimum inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum.  Can anyone provide a list of reasonable guidelines for 5052-H32 and 6061-T6?  If you have guidelines for other alloys that would be helpful.  By the way, I know that the Aluminum Association provides values but these values are so conservative that they do not fairly represent what the industry can produce.  Please group in order of Difficult, Moderate, and Easy and assume the manufacturer has modern equipment.  Please provide tolerances as applicable.  Thanks in advance for your valued inputs!

Tunalover

RE: Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

You might try a search on the Aircraft Engr forum.  Very likely has been addressed there and maybe even in their FAQ's.  But also maybe too conservative for you.

RE: Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

From Tool and Mfg Engineers Handbook:
Approx Radii for 90deg Cold bends in Aluminum alloys

                     Sheet Thickness
          0.016 0.032      0.064    0.128         0.183

5052-H32   0      0          0        0           0T-1T
5052-H34   0      0         0T-1T  1/2T-1-1/2T   1-/2T-3T
6061-T6& 0T-1T 1/2T-1-1/2T  1T-2T  1-/2T-3T      2T-4T
5052-H36

There is more but it'll cost ya.  Actually an answer to the following will suffice:

Is this any less conservative than Aluminum Association?  How about providing the full link so I can compare for my edification?

RE: Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

My data (Alcoa) corresponds to metman's.

Additionally:
5052-H32 has a better rating for workability (cold) than 6061-T6
6061-T6 has better rating for machineability than 5052-H32

All the posted data on bending assumes, as you have stated, on having modern well kept equipment and dies.

The final judgement on alloy in respect to forming is determined by a trial run on the actual equipment to be used.

RE: Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

(OP)
Are there any metal fabricators out there that can lend some expertise here?  Us engineers could use some enlightenment on this!

Tunalover

RE: Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

This is standard cold 90 degree for aircraft industry:

                Sheet Thickness                   
               0.016    0.020  0.025  0.032  0.040
Alloy    Temper        Minimum Bend Radius            
2024    O    0.03    0.030    0.06    0.06    0.060
    T3, T4    0.06    0.060    0.09    0.13    0.130
2524    T3     Same as 2024-O    
6061    O    0.03    0.060    0.06    0.06    0.060
        T6       0.06    0.060    0.09    0.13    0.130
7075    O    0.03    0.060    0.06    0.06    0.090
       T76       0.06    0.090    0.13    0.16    0.220


                    
0.050    0.063    0.071    0.080    0.090    0.100
                    
0.090    0.13    0.13    0.130    0.130    0.160
0.160    0.22    0.25    0.280    0.360    0.410
                    
0.090    0.13    0.13    0.130    0.130    0.160
0.160    0.22    0.25    0.280    0.310    0.380
0.130    0.13    0.16    0.190    0.190    0.220
0.250    0.31    0.38    0.410    0.470    0.560

                        

                            

RE: Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

(OP)
metman-
The Aluminum Association data is not available on-line.  Thanks for your help, though!

Tunalover

RE: Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

We were always in such a push to get the job done so the save standard became this:  The inside radius was always the thickness of the aluminum. When cold forming a 90 degree bend.  It never gave us a single crack at the joint.  If the design required a sharper bend than that more likely than not it wound up being a welded corner anyway.  Just a thought that has worked for me at many companies for the past fourty-five years now.

Sincerely yours,
Leslie H. Howell

RE: Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

hi
go on the net look for l.v.d.uk in banbury,  they are press brake and punch machine engineers manufacturers.they will give you the radius you require.

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