Toward Flexible Actuator Design for Electromagnetic Flanging of Sheet and Tube Metal

This paper proposed a new flexible actuator for electromagnetic forming processes, which combined a solenoid coil with a field shaper to tailor the distribution of the pulsed magnetic field. The leading contribution of our proposal is the flexible control of Lorentz force for forming sheet and tube metal workpieces by using the same actuator, which is difficult for the conventional electromagnetic actuator. To validate the feasibility of the proposal, the principle, design procedure, and realization of the actuator were firstly analyzed and discussed. On this basis, the forming experiments were then carried out, in which multi-step discharge processes were adopted to ensure forming quality control. Accordingly, the experimental results showed that the maximum die-fitting gaps of the flanged sheet and tube were within 0.3 mm, verifying the feasibility of the proposed actuator.