Experimental Investigations and Numerical Analysis for Improving Knowledge of Incremental Sheet Forming Process for Sheet Metal Parts

Abstract

The paper is related to the analysis of shape distortions and springback effects arising in Single Point Incremental Forming. An experimental set up has been designed and manufactured to carry single point incremental forming on small size sheet metal parts. The experimental set up is mounted on 3-axes CNC milling machine tool and the forming tool is attached and move with the spindle. Experiments have been carried out on sheet metal parts to obtain tronconical shapes. The forming strategy associated to the movement of the forming tool has been also investigated. The experiments indicate that shape distortions arising in the corners of the tronconical shape are clearly related to forming strategy. The springback of rings cut in the tronconical parts have been also investigated. It is shown that positive or negative springback could be also related to forming strategy. In order to enhance experimental investigations, Finite Element simulations of the incremental sheet forming have been performed. Results obtained from the simulations prove that if boundary conditions and forming strategy carefully are taking into account, the finite elements results are in good agreement with experiments. So it is then possible to use FEM as a design tool for incremental sheet forming.