Incremental Sheet Metal Forming: The State of Art and Its Future Prospects

Abstract

Incremental sheet metal forming (ISMF) is an innovative sheet metal forming in which not dedicated die is required. The paper is a review of the ISMF for its future research potential. The present study aimed to enlighten the innovative strategies used in the ISMF and highlighted the complexities that is still present in the ISMF. The key benefits of the ISMF are customer-orientated process, flexible manufacturing, and the part formation at low cost. With few advantages, the several difficulties are observed. The achievement of exact dimension i.e. geometrical accuracy, required surface finish, springback effect, forming of complex shape, prevention of thin sheet failure, optimized tool path, tool wear etc. are the major challenges in the ISMF. The causes for aforesaid difficulties are due to the variation in the process, undefined input variability, tool size, tool path, machines efficiency, etc. Wide recognition of this technique enumerates its prospects and the acceptability in industries. The current study enumerated the ISMF strategies and optimization technique has been reported by the researchers and directed to the area in which more concentrated study is required for the optimization of the ISMF.