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Aluminum Plate Engineering/Forming Question

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Victor Bravo

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2014
Messages
13,443
Location
KWHP, Los Angeles CA, USA
I am hoping that someone will be kind enough to share a spoonful of formal education and/or technical knowledge with me.

I need to form a pice of 3/4" or 7/8" thick 7075-T6 aluminum plate. The piece will be aout 3.5 to 4 inches wide. Yes, it's for a landing gear. Yes I already know that Grove Aircraft makes landing gears.

I already know that 7075 aluminum, particularly in the tempered (T6) condition, really prefers not to be bent.

But I want to bend it anyway, and I want to bend it in the T6 condition (time, cost).

I have seen some "minimum bend radius" charts that (apparently) show 7075-T6 CAN be bent, but you have to increase the bend radius quite a bit. Those bend radius charts all seem to stop at .190 and .250 sheet thickness, and something like 7-10T min. bend radius.

My question is: If I want to bend a .750 or .875 thick plate that is already in the T6 condition, just how large does the minimum bend radius be, in order to not have structural difficulties with the metal ?

12T, 14T, 20T???
 
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