How to Calculate Tonnage Requirements for Your Press Brake Tooling?

Choosing the right press brake tooling is a key factor to successful sheet metal bending. When it comes to bending heavy plates, one much consider the tonnage needs for their own particular bending application? The incorrect tonnage can result in subpar bend quality, early tool wear and sometimes even damage to your machine. For those operating machinery from the Nanjing ACL Machinery Factory, calculating this force accurately is crucial to achieving optimal efficiency and durability in their press brakes.

Tonnage in a press brake means the amount of force the machine uses to bend a piece of sheet metal. This force is used to overcome the stiffness of the material. The tonnage you need is not one and the same; it varies according to a few different factors all depending on the work that’s being done. Too little reduces the amount of bend, creating a less accurate and incomplete bend, while too much can put pressure on both tooling and machine.

Key Factors That Influence Tonnage

There are a number of material and geometrical properties which will inform you directly how much force is required.
Other factors depend on what material you are bending: Material type is the big one. With harder materials like high-strength steel and stainless being used nowadays, much more force is needed to bend the material than with softer aluminum. Equally as important is the density of the material. Doubling the material thickness, as a rule of thumb, will require almost four times the amount of force to bend it therefore this is a non-linear and creditable relationship.

It is also the straightness of bend that has a direct effect. A longer span takes more total force. For example, bending over four feet will require twice the force to bend in the same place of a two-foot sheet.

And, last but not least, the V-opening in your die is an important tooling consideration. Less force is needed to make a bend if the V-die is narrow compared with a wide one for the same material. But if you choose a V-die that is too narrow, there’s the possibility of bottoming the punch out and causing damage to the tooling. Consequently, selecting the proper die width is a compromise between forming the required angle at low tonnage and following safe practices.

Importance of Proper Tonnage on the Life of Tooling

So, on a shop floor like manned by Nanjing ACL Machinery Factory and which invested in heavy flywheel drive press brakes and tooling, employing the right tonnage is indispensable to protect their investment. If you run with consistently too much force, you will wear the punch tip and die shoulders faster. This not only results in higher maintenance costs and more frequent tooling changes but can also lead to surface defects on the bent parts. You determine the exact tonnage requirement and then use it bringing about tooling working as designed, bender accuracy being maintained and maximizing tool life.

Practical Steps for Your Fabrication Process

Prior to starting any bending process, it is important to collect all necessary information. That goes for its material type, thickness (to the exact degree), the length of bend you seek, and the width V-die that you intend to use. Once armed with that information, it’s possible to calculate the tonnage you need. With Nanjing ACL Machinery Factory new press brakes, you have the flexibility to adjust-in precise control of bending force in the parameter stage where we match technology with experience.

Just make sure that the tonnage you have calculated isn’t higher than what your press brake machine can handle.  It is also a safety issue to make your press about 80 percent the size of the total capacity of the machine in any given application. This provides a safety factor and a guarantee that the circuit will act in the same manner.

In the end, there is simply no substitute for doing the math to accurately calculate tonnage needs. It protects your equipment, maximizes the return on your tooling investment, and ensures the quality of your finished products. When you work the procedure into your routine, it makes for a more streamlined and bullet-proof fabrication.