Fundamentals of Formability
Sheet metal forming is quite common for making shaped components, from soda cans to automotive car bodies. It is customary to refer to a material below the thickness of 6.35 mm as a sheet and thicker materials as plate. Because this book is limited to bend forming, which is the simplest of sheet metal forming operations, the basic discussion is limited to bending. It is easy to visualize the extension of friction stir processing for enhanced formability to three-dimensional forming involving various stress states. A key aspect that is going to be emphasized is the plate forming. As will become clear, higher the thickness of material, lower the formability.
Sheet metal forming based on presses is a widely used manufacturing process, being well-developed nowadays. Finished products have good quality, are geometrically accurate and parts are ready to be used. It is used for large batches, which amortize tooling cost, producing large quantities of components during a short time interval. However, the possibility to use conventional stamping processes for small batches or personalized prototypes is naturally very expensive. In R&D processes, prototype manufacturing is an important step in product development. Consequently, it is important to shorten the product’s life-cycle and costs in its initial development. As a result, the Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) technology is a new possibility to decrease the cost problem in small volume production. It introduces the use of metallic (or polymeric) sheet for small batches production in an economic way without the need of expensive or dedicated tools. The study and development of this process have been growing over the last years.
Read more: Sheet Metal Forming