Continuous forming of height-variable profiles by flexible roller beading

Abstract

Lightweight and load-adapted products offer opportunities for savings in terms of material usage and environmental pollution. Additionally, the requirements of Industry 4.0 are changing industrial manufacturing from mass production to mass customization and on-demand manufacturing. These aspects are accompanied by new challenges and motivate the development of manufacturing systems with higher flexibility. Flexible processes allow the realization of several families of parts on the same system with shortened changeover time. For this purpose, the novel forming process “flexible roller beading” was developed, which enables the production of sheet metal profiles with customizable, height-variable cross-sections. The manufactured height development of the profile is not tool-constrained and can be adapted individually to the part application loads. By this level of flexibility, new design requirements can be satisfied in sheet metal profile manufacturing. Furthermore, semi-finished products can be produced, which potentially reduce the necessary expenses and expand the process limits of downstream forming processes. With the presented work being the initial introduction of “flexible roller beading”, the operating principle is presented. As a key aspect, the feasibility of the novel process is shown. Therefore a flexible roller beading manufacturing system fulfilling the necessary kinematic requirements of the forming process is developed and experimental tests are carried out. Additionally, an FE model of the process is created and validated by experimental comparative tests. From the results of experimental and numerical investigations, defect types and process limits are determined, which are the bases for further process optimization towards the industrial suitability of flexible roller beading.