Which Type Of Aluminum Sheet Bends Best

A bending brake will be best suited for shaping flat square sheets of light gauge aluminum.

Which type of aluminum sheet bends best.

Miserable to bend cracking is very common and cold bending will always weaken the metal. Heavy gauge aluminum bars or rods must be heat bent using an acetylene torch and vice. A commercially pure aluminum with added manganese to increase its strength 20 stronger than the 1100 grade. Aluminium alloy 3003 excellent for bending the best series for forming and thus for bending are the alloy series 3xxx 5xxx and in some cases 6xxx.

From a bending perspective it s always best to bend these parts in an annealed state and then temper them to the correct condition. Series 7xxx are the aluminum zinc magnesium and aluminum zinc copper alloys. Highly formable and one of the best kinds of aluminum to bend. Grain direction bend line should go across the grain for the best bend having said that a typical sharp 90 bend on a piece of 1 8 aluminum sheet should be a minimum 1 8 inside radius use either 3003 or 5052 ideally the bend line should go across the grain.

That s the ideal anyway but the reality is that many parts arrive at the press brake in a less than ideal state. Series 6xxx are the aluminum magnesium silicon alloys. For example if weldability is most important to your project but strength is not it may make sense to choose alloy 1100 as this aluminum grade has excellent weldability but is not typically used for high strength or high pressure applications. The are mainly used in architectural applications.

Basic bending brakes typically retail for around 20 50 and are small enough to fit easily on most work benches or tabletops. This will give you a nice bend. Aluminium alloy 6063 is a good choice for example while 6082 is more difficult. The most widely used of all aluminum alloys.

The top 3 aluminum alloys for being are the 3003 which has medium strength and the best cold workability the 5052 which is the highest strength alloy of the more common non heat treatable grades and the 6061 which is one of the more versatile heat treatable alloys. They exhibit very high strength making them very difficult to form. Proper bending can be done with annealing the aluminum first although it s not an ideal candidate for formed parts. When this is an issue 2024 is commonly used in an anodized finish or in clad form thin surface layer of high purity aluminum known as alclad.