Aluminum Alloy For Bending Sheet Metal

3003 definitely isn t fun for drilling or any other sort of operation involving edge cutting tools.

Aluminum alloy for bending sheet metal.

This series is one of the most preferable for forming applications. 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. As a general rule the machinability of any aluminum alloy is inversely proportional to its formability. Series 4xxx are the aluminum silicon alloys.

With an addition of 1 manganese these alloys have no significant loss in ductility good corrosion resistance and very good formability. The force must exceed the material s yield strength to achieve a plastic deformation. Bending these tempered alloys is not impossible but it is very difficult and will most likely require large bend radii to avoid cracking on the outside of the bend. Bending is one of the most common sheet metal fabrication operations.

Series 3xxx are the aluminum manganese alloys. 4140 is usually pretty malleable in general you ll always want it to be annealed if you re planning on bending it or else it ll crack. The alloy 5052 h32 may bend well enough for my use and shows about 50 higher tensile and yield. This is done through the application of force on a workpiece.

Miserable to bend cracking is very common and cold bending will always weaken the metal. The aluminum series ability to bend tends to decrease as you move down the list of tempers from annealed to t4 and t6.