Sheet Bending Machine, Types of Sheet Bending Machine, Applications of Sheet Bending Machine

Sheet Bending Machines – Types and Applications

Metals need to be casted into different shapes and sizes for various applications in different industries. They are normally very hard and therefore could not be bent or shaped easily. For bending and shaping of metals, a special category of unit is used called sheet bending or metal bending machines.

Types of Sheet Bending Machines

Different kinds of sheet bending equipments in various configurations are now available in the market. There are highly sophisticated models used in industries for bulk processes as well as those that are used in low production processes in small work shops or tool rooms on a work site. Some of the popular kinds are press brake, bending roller, shearing and power press metal forming.

Applications of Sheet Bending Machines

Sheet bending machine is mainly used to deform or shape metals into desired shapes and sizes. The metal is subjected to higher stress causing it to deform because of disturbance in its yield and tensile strengths. Here a strong force is applied on a metal part to be shaped causing it to deform in a particular direction. For metal to be casted into customized irregular shape, a sequence of operations are to performed on the metals with these sheet bending.

Press brake is one of the most important variant of sheet bending machine tool used for bending metal sheets and plates into customized shapes. Different kinds of press brakes are employed for metal bending applications in industries. Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic press brake models are most famous. Different metal forming jobs like curling, angled shaping, bending, bottoming, seaming, hemming etc. are possible with any of these press brakes by the use of various kinds of dies. Bending roller can be used for bending and straightening sheet metal covers and parts of boiler tanks, pressure vessels and converters where as shearing tool like mechanical and hydraulic shearing can be employed for cutting sheet metal to size out of a larger stock. Large sheets, bars and plates of metallic and non-metallic materials can be easily and accurately cut into different shapes with the help of shearing machine. Another important variant of sheet bending machine, called power press is the best metal bending equipment with which most accurate metal cutting, bending and shaping tasks can be executed for bulk industrial processes.

Tool Room Machines – Slotting Machine, Shaping Machine, Milling Machine

Tool Room Machines – Slotting Machine, Shaping Machine, Milling Machine

Tool room is a space for making tools. In a broader sense it can be defined as facility where the tools and machining equipment are made, stored, and repaired on a work site. Usually these tool rooms can be found in metalworking facilities where quite often there is need for production of custom tools and equipment. That are used in these tool rooms are often referred by special category called tool room machines.

Machines in the category of tool room equipments are usually those that are well suited to the low volume production applications of tool room departments. Some of the widely used kinds of tool room equipment are slotting, shaping, milling, tool & cutter grinding, bandsaw and hacksaw machine. Let us now have a detailed look on slotting, shaping and milling used in tool rooms. Continue reading

Sheet Bending, Sheet Bending Machine

Popular Sheet Bending Machines

The act of bending metals into desired shape can be termed as sheet bending. In a normal sheet bending process force is applied on the metal causing it to deform in a particular direction and this mechanism is usually employed with the help of special kind of equipments called sheet bending. With this, one can deform the shape of various kinds of metals. Aluminum, brass, copper, steel, tin, nickel and titanium are few of them.

The sheet bending machines are robust equipments designed with parts like bending beam and die sets which help in carrying out customized metal bending. The metals are stressed beyond their yield and tensile strengths to give them the desired shape. They are actually deformed only along one axis but when sequence of different operations are performed on them, even the complex shapes can be casted with sheet bending. Continue reading

Metal Bending and Shaping Machines – Press Brake, Lathe Machine

Metal Bending and Shaping Machines – Press Brake, Lathe Machine

Basically two types of equipments are widely used in metal forming industries. One is sheet bending and other is lathe. A sheet bending machine is the one that bends metal sheets into miraculous shapes whereas the lathe machine is used to create metal work pieces with evenness about an axis connected with rotation.

Different kinds of sheet bending are employed for various metal bending and shaping tasks in industries. Press brakes and power press are the popular ones.

Press Brake

Press brake is a special kind of sheet bending tool in which strain is exerted by the upper punch tool is on the material placed on the die tool at the bottom. The material gets deformed as per the shape of the die.  If the die is U-shaped the metal will deformed to U shape and if V-die is used then metal will be bent into V-shape. Depending on the type of force used to exert strain on the material, It is classified into various categories; mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic and servo-electric devices. In mechanical press brake, electric motor is the source of energy used to empower the flywheel that is engaged by clutch to power a crank mechanism that moves the ram vertically to perform bending job. The advantage of mechanical press brake is that accurate tasks can be performed much faster but the problem is the control over the motion of the ram which cannot be easily stopped at any required time as that in the hydraulic ones. The hydraulic press brakes that are operated by synchronized hydraulic cylinders are safer and energy saving metal benders in which ram motion can be stopped at any time. On the other hand pneumatic and servo-electric machines that operate by air pressure and servo motors respectively are generally preferred for low tonnage applications.

Power Press

These are used to lower, press, fold and kind sheet metal into various shapes and sizes. These are usually equipped with parts like shaft, gears, clutch, table and ram to enable for easy, quick and precise sheet bending operations. C type power press and pillar type power press are the popular categories of power press used in industries.

Lathe Machine

Apart from bending, metals are also shaped to create axis symmetrical objects and this task is accomplished with the help of lathe machines. It is a tool which rotates the work piece on its axis and various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or deformation are performed with tools on the work piece to create an object that is symmetrical about the axis of rotation. Different kinds like CNC lathe, roll turning lathe and all-geared lathes are generally employed in industries to accurately shape out different kinds of metals as per requirements. Lathe machines with best features can accurately device out even the hardest metal into a functional work piece.

Sheet Bending with Press Brake

Sheet Bending with Press Brake

Different kinds of machines are employed for sheet metal forming tasks in industries like lathe, sheet bending, power press, press brakes etc.

It is a special kind of sheet bending machine that is designed to meet tougher metal bending requirements in industries. It applies direct strain about the metal sheet and alters it to the desired form. It is commonly utilized all over the entire world to mold all types of metals into different designs. Aluminum, brass, copper, steel, tin, nickel and titanium are some common metals which can be bent into desired shapes using a press brake.

To bend metal using press brake it is first of all inserted in the jaws of press brakes. It is placed between the two tools of machine called punch and die. Punch is the upper tool which exerts force on metal sheet and bends it, while the die is the lower tool of the machine having a specific design. It is in this design that the metal will be casted. For bending, the sheet is placed on the die and held in place by the back gauge while the punch lowers and forces the sheet to bend according to shape of the die. Once this is done, in normal cases the sheet tries to regain its normal position because of the residual stresses acting on it and therefore the sheet is usually over-bent to achieve a proper bend angle.

There are basically three basic types of bending performed using a press brake; air bending, bottoming and coining. In air bending, material is formed by pressing a punch into the material into a bottom V-die. Disadvantage of this method is that it is not as precise as other methods and stroke depth must be kept very accurate. Variations in the thickness of the material and wear on the tools can result in defects in parts produced. Bottoming is similar to air bending. Here also the sheet is forced against the V opening in the bottom tool but the advantage of this method is that it provides greater accuracy and less spring back than air bending. A different tool set is needed for each bend angle, sheet thickness, and material and therefore in general, air bending is the preferred technique in this case. The third process is coining in which the top tool forces the material into the bottom die with five to 30 times the force of air bending. It causes a permanent deformation through the sheet with very little or approximately no spring back at all. This means that with coining high precision can be attained but due to its higher costs it is not often used.

To perform bending, today different ranges are available in the market. Depending on the type of force used for bending, there are 4 different type of brakes; mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and servo-electric. Depending on accuracy, speed and quantity of bending to be performed, one can select the best one for their applications by considering factors like work pieces to produce, inner radius required, accuracy, tooling, flange width etc.