Bending Aluminum Sheet Grain

You must pay careful attention to grain or rolling direction when bending high strength metals especially when trying to achieve a small inside bend radius.

Bending aluminum sheet grain.

When bending high strength materials such as spring or high carbon steel you should orient the part so that it can be bent against the grain. In other words if you re bending 1 8 sheet use a tool with a 1 8 radius to form the inside of the bend. Again the minimum inside bend radius is even larger when bending with the grain. That said forming with the grain takes less pressure to make a bend.

Bending the sheet metal longitudinally with the grain allows those grains to separate at the grain boundaries. Pieces 22 long by 1 75 wide by 0 63 thick. Bending with the grain gives a different result than bending against it. The trend is obvious.

The grain direction is established during the metal rolling process. For most applications with stainless steel or aluminum you can get away with a zero radius bend on anything under 0 050 thick. Bend angles also can be less consistent. Bending with the grain also limits how tight of an inside bend radius you can achieve without cracking the outside of the bend.

General advice on aluminum. If you re bending 0 020 thick material use a 0 020 radius. The bend is along the long dimension. For 0 5 in thick 7050 aluminum the minimum bend radius may be specified as much as 9 5 times material thickness.

When bending aluminum know that the smaller your inside bend radius the larger the chance that cracking will occur in the part. Bending 2024 t3 grain direction considered. Inside bend radius 0 19. The harder and thicker the plate is the greater the minimum bend radius.

A common way to prevent material failure or cracking is by bending the metal against the grain or perpendicular to the grain. Bending with the grain may result in cracking or.