When sheet metal is bend the inside bending surface is compressed.
Calculating k factor sheet metal bending.
Typically the k factor is going to be between 0 and 5.
In order to find the k factor you will need to bend a sample piece and deduce the bend allowance.
The k factor is the most important and elusive variable of bending because it varies both as a function of the material and according to parameters such as angle and tooling.
The k factor is a key basic concept in solidworks sheet metal design and must be understood in order to learn sheet metal design and fabrication well.
You can easily modify the material thickness inside radius and k factor for each thickness at the top of each column.
Best way to calculate k factor in sheet metal is by reverse engineering.
K factor in sheet metal bending is a constant that is used to calculate sheet metal flat length.
The k factor is the ratio between the distance from the neutral layer to the bent inner surface and the thickness of the sheet metal.
The below microsoft excel chart is for even numbered gauges 8 through 24 and has a default k factor of 33 for each.
Input material thickness and and inner radius to get the data of k factor y factor neutral layer.
Whereas the outer surface is stretched.
The inside radii are based off of a standard air bend force chart.
Then input the bend angle to get the arc length bend allowance and bend deduction.
We will start by calculating the bend allowance.
The k factor is defined as the ratio between the material thickness t and the neutral fibre axis t i e.
Therefore using k factor there is no need to calculate sheet metal flat length manually.
Calculate k factor bend allowance and y factor for sheet metal bending.
Also known as press braking flanging die bending folding and edging this method is used to deform a material to an angular shape.
After bending the sheet we need to do some measurements as shown in figure 2.
What is the k factor.
Sheet metal bending methods design tips k factor bending is one of the most common sheet metal fabrication operations.
As shown in figure 1 below k t t.
And if you know the bend allowance you can extract the k factor from it.
The k factor is nothing more than a multiplier that can give you an accurate value for the relocated neutral axis.
Sheet metal bend allowance chart pdf.
From there we can calculate the k factor and the bend deduction.
Figure 2 illustrates the sheet that is bent with the bend angle of 90 degrees.
Then input leg length a and b to get the flat size of the sheet.
The part of the material that bends.
The k factor is fundamental to designing precise sheet metal.
As a result overall sheet length increases.
Since the k factor is based on the property of the metal and its thickness there is no simple way to calculate it ahead of the first bend.
Once you know the k factor you can use it to predict the bend allowance for various angles.
