How To Determine Bend Radius Sheet Metal

Cells on the right will output the desired values.

How to determine bend radius sheet metal.

The material thickness will be measured in decimal form not by the gauge number. For example if the thickness of the sheet is 1 mm the minimum bend radius should be 1 mm. If your sheet metal is too thick you may need special machinery like a brake or a torch to bend your sheet into the desired shape. You will need to know your material thickness mt the bend angle b the inside radius ir and the k factor k.

You only have to insert interior angle flange lengths k factor inside radius and material thickness. Punch starts creasing the bend line is 0 172 in. Thus the smallest radius of any bend in a sheet should be at least equal to the thickness of the sheet. To calculate the neutral axis distance from the inner face t we can subtract inside bend radius from r.

The best way i can think of is to eyeball the bend and measure with a caliper but that gets somewhat fuzzy when the radius levels off. And by having t and the sheet thickness t we can calculate the k factor as follow. Determine your minimum bend by measuring the distance from your closest feature i e. Bend radii minimum bend sizes.

In essence we are trying to more accuratley determine what our bend radii are for different sheet metal thicknesses so that our drawings spit out a more accurate flat pattern. You can use a tape measure or ruler to measure the thickness of your sheet metal. Like previous scenarios let s start by calculating leg length 1. The die opening determines the inside bend radius on the part.

Bending angles greater than 90 degrees. This measurement will be necessary for calculating your bend allowance. A is the bending angle in the above equation so. Finally you run a test bend only to find that the actual radius is 0 170 in.

The bend allowance formula takes into account the geometries of bending and the properties of your metal to determine the bend allowance. There are four methods for finding bend allowances. To calculate r which is the radius of the arc on the neutral axis we can use the following equation. The most important considerations when bending metal is the min.

Determine the thickness of your sheet. To determine the inside radius developed over a given die opening and for various material types and thicknesses technicians have used what s known as the 20 percent rule. We recommend a minimum bend radius of 1t for all sheet metal parts. Radius of a bend is determined by the hardness and thickness of the metal.

Radius metal will crack at the outside heel of the bend. When bends are made smaller than the required min. Meanwhile when you calculate to see whether the bend will turn sharp you find that the minimum radius before your 0 032 in.