Incremental sheet forming of composite material

Abstract

The Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) is considered as a rapid sheet forming method due to promising future in prototyping as well as in batch manufacturing. The SPIF process was mainly focused on metallic materials over the past decades. In the first decade of the 20th century different non-metallic materials were taken into consideration for performing SPIF. Polymer composites showed promising results in terms of formability and mechanical properties. The present study reviews the studies performed on non-metallic materials over the past decade. Polymers such as PVC, PET, PC, HDPE, PLA, etc. were tested by researchers while performing SPIF. This study reviews the research done on incremental forming of such materials. The forming abilities, geometric accuracy as well as the surface roughness are dependent on the different process parameters having their own effects such as depth of step, angle of forming and process temperature. In this study as investigation over a composite material specifically polyamide-6 (PA-6) sheet was performed. The study includes the influence of various forming process parameters on the forming abilities of the components made of PA-6. The simulation was performed in ABAQUS on a polyamide-6 sheet. The deformation of polyamide-6 sheet is examined using simulation software. The incremental forming process is a promising process to define the forming abilities of different materials.