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February 7, 2012 The Independent Community for Autodesk Inventor Users

Calculating Developed Length for Sheet Metal Bends Larger than 90 Degrees
By Bob Van der Donck, Autodesk

This question comes up regularly as users want to double check the developed length of their sheet metal parts. The
Inventor wiki help shows all kind of nice pictures and formulas for the developed length, but if you look more closely you
will notice that all the images provided in the wiki are for situations where the bend angle is smaller than or equal to 90
deg.
For bend angles larger than 90 degree, calculating the developed length proves to be a bit more involved.

The general formula of the developed length is:

L = L1 + L2 - d

With

d = delta value as found in the bend table

b = bend angle as measured in the image below

L1, L2 = the flange lengths measured to the tangency point as can be seen in
Fig 1.

Fig 1: Parameters needed to calculate the developed length of a bend

The most important aspect to understand in Fig 1 is how the L1 and L2 length values are measured. They are measured
"tangent" to the bend (see also the blue lines in Fig4).

Let's take an example. We start out with a 90 degree flange with respective flange heights of L1 = 30 mm and L2 =20 mm
and a bend radius of 2mm.

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Fig 2: Initial 90 degree flange definition

For a bend radius of 2 mm radius we specify following bend table in the sheet metal unfold style:

Fig 3: Our bend table definition

We now modify the 90 degree flange to a 95 degree flange.

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The most common mistake is to calculate the developed length as follows:

L = L1 + L2 d = 30 mm + 20 mm 3.71045 = 46.289 mm

The mistake is that our L1 and L2 values have changed from their original values of 20 and 30!

Fig 4: Measuring the correct L1 and L2 values

We can easily correct our mistake by measuring the L1 and L2 values appropriately to the tangent line to the bend as can
be seen in Fig 4. After that filling in the values in the formula is uneventful.

L = L1 + L2 d = 29.635 + 19.635 3.710405 = 45.559595 mm

The calculated result corresponds nicely with what can be measured on the flat pattern.

Fig 5: Developed length as measured on the flat

Hopefully this gives you an idea on how to reverse engineer Inventor's developed length algorithm and assures you a
better night sleep, knowing that Inventor does an accurate job in calculating the length.

Reprinted with permission by Autodesk

Published 02/06/2012 06: 0:0: ConnectPress, Ltd 2012

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