SHEET METAL FORMING

OPERATIONS BENDING
Part-3
Dr. N. Ramesh Babu
Professor

Manufacturing Engineering Section

Mechanical Engineering Department
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Email: nrbabu@iitm.ac.in

Forming Opera.ons
V - Bending
Bending

Bending
Mechanics

Edge Bending

Drawing

Flanging
Coining
Bulging

Deep
Drawing
Redrawing
Deep Drawing
without blank
holder

Steps in
drawing

Design issues
1.Bend allowance
2.Spring back & its
compensa.on
3.Bending force
4.Blank length
calcula.on
5.Geometry of
bending punches and
dies
Design issues
1.Draw ra.o
2.Dimension and
shape of blank
3.Drawing forces
4.Number of passes
5.Working
dimensions of
drawing punches and
dies
2

Minimum Bend Radius

Bend radii less than 1/32 to 1/16 inch or metal
thickness should be avoided so that part will not be
damaged
For a given metal and thickness it will be found that the
bend radius cannot be below a certain minimum value
without excessive scrap due to cracking
Minimum bend radii for various materials at room temperature

Contd...
Rela.onship between the
ra.o of bend radius to sheet
thickness
and
tensile
reduc.on of area for various
materials.

r tensile reduc.on of area (%)

Note that sheet metal with a

reduc.on of area of about
50% can be bent and
aTened over itself without
crackling.
Source: A+er J. Datsko and C. T. Yang

Eect of bend length on minimum bend radii

Bent specimens fail at smaller
strains or at correspondingly
larger bend radii the smaller
the ra.o of length to metal
thickness
This eect is very pronounced
for compara.vely narrow part
For parts, the breadth of part
exceeds the metal thickness
approximately 8 .mes,
minimum bend radius is
constant
5

Length of Bend and Edge Condi.on/Ra.o of Bend Radius

The eect of length of bend and edge condi.on on the ra.o of bend radius
to thickness of 7075-T aluminum. Source: A`er G. Sachs and G. Espey

Rolling Direc.on (Anisotropy)

The Eect of Elongated Inclusions

(a) and (b) The eect of elongated inclusions (stringers) on cracking as a func.on
of the direc.on of bending with respect to the original rolling direc.on of the
sheet. This example shows the importance of the direc.on of cubng from large
sheets in workpieces that are subsequently bent to make a product. (c) Cracks
on the outer radius of an aluminum strip bent to an angle of 90.
This example shows the importance of the direction of cutting from large sheets in
work pieces that are subsequently bent to make a product

Calcula.on of Bend Allowance

Case1 Thickness change is neglected,
The radius of curvature of the neutral axis would
be equal to
BA=(A/360)2(R+0.5T)
=0.01745A (R+0.5T)

case2 Thickness change is considered,

The radius of curvature of the neutral axis would
be equal to
BA=(A/360)2(R+0.45T)
=0.01745A (R+0.45T)

*The dierence in bend allowance, with and without considera.on of

thinning in the bend amounts to nearly 10% of the thickness
8

Blank development using Bend allowance

Usage Bend Allowance in nding the

blank/unfold dimensions

Calcula.on of Setback (x)

The width of the developed blank is obtained by

adding dimensions of at por.ons, the web
and the various bends
X=(R+T) tan(A/2)

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Calcula.on of Bending Force

11

Forming limits in Bending

A bent part fails if an aTempt is made to
bend/curve it to radius smaller than a
certain cri.cal value
The failure is ini.ated by transverse
cracking at the convex surface which is
subjected to circumferen.al tension
The forming limit in the bending is
consequently determined by the amount
of stretching which the metal will permit
under the stress condi.on prevailing on
bending
12

BEND SEQUENCE DETERMINATION:

It focuses on determining an optimal bend sequence from the set of feasible bend sequences.
A part with many bends has many feasible bend sequences. A feasible bend sequence refers to a
sequence without any collision during the bending process.
A collision may be self or with tool or with machine parts. It is described in the figure below.

Self collision

Collision with tool

TOOL SET ALLOCATION:

A set of tools is to be selected for each bend considering both geometrical and technical
constraints.
Geometrical constraint refer to collision avoidance as shown in the above figure.
Technical constraints refer to the dependence of bend parameters such as inner radius etc., on
tool geometry.
13

TOOLING LAYOUT ON PRESS BRAKE:

Tooling layout implies determining the actual locations of all tools that need to be mounted on the
machine.
An optimized tool layout reduces the total travel distance of an operator during the process.

RAM
Punch holder
Punch
Die
Die holder
Bo>om Beam

GAUGE POSITION DETERMINATION:

Back gauges helps in placing the sheet accurately in position by providing support from the back
side of the machine.
The position of back gauge for each bend need to be determined.
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