Integrated Process Design for Two Robots Based Incremental Sheet Metal Forming

Abstract

With the use of two industrial robots, Roboforming is a dieless incremental forming process, which is developed by the Chair of Production Systems at the Ruhr-University of Bochum. Connected to a cooperating robot system, these two robots hold respectively a forming and a supporting tool. Suitable for rapid prototyping and manufacture of small batch sizes with low costs, this forming process is based on flexible shaping through the synchronous movement of two industrial robots. Different from other single point incremental forming (SPIF) methods, the supporting tool used here greatly increases the geometric accuracy and the limited draw angle. A new processing technology always needs the computer-aided planning and simulation, which could accelerate the whole process and also give users the possibility to analyse and improve the process. In this paper, the whole integrated process design is introduced. After the modelling of the target CAD geometry, a self-developed CAM solution is used to get both tools’ positions and orientations according to the points on the geometrical surface. Based on the different forming strategies used, the supporting tool can even be synchronously placed at different positions on the sheet backside. After the tool path planning, the paths are first inputted into a simulation environment, which is consistent with the settings in the pilot plant. The tool positions and each robot’s postures can be seen and validated during the simulation. Before the final forming experiment, the tool paths are also sent into another simulation model for the forming analysis with the use of FEM technology. With consideration of many real material properties like springback and the subsequent deformation, the formed CAD geometry from the simulation is compared with the target CAD geometry and the forming results can be forecasted.