Things to note when bending stainless steel plates

Stainless steel plates are very versatile and can be processed into any desired style in different application fields. How do stainless steel plate manufacturers bend stainless steel plates? What should you pay attention to when bending?

Since stainless steel itself has a high yield point, high hardness, and significant cold work hardening effect, the characteristics of stainless steel plates when they are bent are as follows:

1. Because the thermal conductivity is worse than ordinary low carbon steel and the elongation is low, the required deformation force is large;

2. Compared with carbon steel, stainless steel sheets have a strong tendency to rebound when bent;

3. Due to the lower elongation of stainless steel plates compared to carbon steel, the bending angle R of the workpiece during bending must be greater than that of carbon steel, otherwise cracks may occur;

4. Due to the high hardness of the stainless steel plate, the cold work hardening effect is significant. Therefore, when selecting a press bending tool, a tool steel with a heat treatment hardness of above 60HRC should be selected. Its surface roughness is an order of magnitude higher than that of a carbon steel press bending tool.

According to the above characteristics of stainless steel plate bending, the following conditions should be paid attention to during operation:

1. Under unit size, the thicker the stainless steel plate, the greater the required bending force, and as the plate thickness increases, the margin for bending force should be greater when selecting bending equipment;

2. Under unit size, the greater the tensile strength, the smaller the elongation, the greater the required bending force, and the larger the bending angle should be;

3. When the plate thickness corresponds to the bending radius in the design drawing, according to experience, the expansion size of a bent workpiece is the sum of the right-angled sides minus the two plate thicknesses, which can fully meet the design accuracy requirements. The expansion amount can be calculated according to the empirical formula. Simplifying the calculation process greatly improves production efficiency;

4. The greater the yield strength of the material, the greater the elastic recovery. In order to obtain a 90-degree angle for the bent part, the angle of the required press knife must be designed to be smaller. Compared with carbon steel, stainless steel with the same plate thickness has a larger bending angle. Special attention should be paid to this point, otherwise bending cracks will occur and affect the strength of the workpiece.