Development of a form-flexible handling technology with active cooling for hybrid components in forging processes

Abstract

Tailored Forming is a novel manufacturing process for the production of forged hybrid components. In contrast to components made of mono-materials, hybrid components can be adapted to the respective loads by combining different materials with contradictory properties. Short processing times and high component quality, however, lead to the demand for automated handling and local active cooling within the forming process, since the appropriate processing temperature is particularly important. Due to the fact that the hybrid components are differently hot and change their shape during the forming process, a special gripper system must be provided, which can withstand high temperatures, and ensures both shape variability and local cooling. Nowadays, however, there is a gap between shape variable grippers and rigid grippers for temperature-sensitive processes without any integrated cooling functionalities. Therefore, this paper presents an approach for the development of shape variable high temperature grippers with the use-case of handling hot steel-aluminium hybrid components.