Temperature variation during high speed incremental forming on different lightweight alloys

Abstract

Industrial needs are becoming always more complex due to an ever more demanding market and an increasingly fierce competition. Flexibility is, without shadow of doubt, a sought point of strength for improving the company market competitiveness. On this direction, incremental sheet forming (ISF) properly responds to the standing industrial needs. Dimensional accuracy and process slowness are the main drawbacks, which have to be addressed for the growing use of ISF in the industrial scenario. Furthermore, taking into account the current requirements related to the reduction of weights and volumes for fuel saving in the automotive field, lightweight alloys are the materials, which have been always more utilized for the manufacture of several parts. Here, their reduced workability at room temperature has to be taken into account. In this work, high speed incremental forming on lightweight alloys was investigated. The increment of the process velocity was proposed as a possible solution to mitigate the emphasized process limitations. Different ISF conditions were investigated by an experimental plan varying the punch velocity of two orders of magnitude; furthermore, the coil pitch was also analyzed. Finally, the plan was carried out on two different lightweight alloys, an aluminum alloy (AA5754) and a titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V), to highlight the impact the different material properties have on the temperature distribution during the process. A wide discussion on the obtained results is reported.