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Inside bend radii for various grades of sheet aluminum

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Tunalover

Mechanical
Mar 28, 2002
1,179
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
 
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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.


 
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?

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


Tunalover
 
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





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


Tunalover
 
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
 
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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