Investigations on the forming characteristics of a novel flexible incremental sheet forming method for low-ductility metals at room temperature

As important structural freeform panels (FFPs) for medical implants and aerospace system, lightweight thin wall panels with lower ductility are conventionally produced by hot forming process by utilizing the die on the press, which is not efficient or cost-effective for small batch or customized manufacturing. The dieless incremental sheet forming (ISF) provides a promising solution with increased formability, but making sheet metal panels with low-ductility at room temperature is still a challenging work. Targeting to solve this puzzle, a novel ISF without edge constraint on the target blank between the two edge-fixed supporting layers is developed to get flexible and free plastic deformation for the target blank. To reveal the deformation mechanism of this new method, an analytical prediction model of sheet thickness in ISF process is developed to calculate the deformed thickness in severe thinning region, which indicates that the undesired severe thinning region of conventional ISF process is caused by different stress states near the constrained edge, and can be completely eliminated by this proposed method to obtain uniform plastic deformation and improved formability. Different FFPs of magnesium alloy AZ31 and titanium alloy TC4 are fabricated by the novel flexible free ISF (FFISF) to validate the improved formability, and compared with conventional ISF and three-sheet incremental forming. Experimental studies demonstrate that the proposed method provides potentials for flexible fabrication of FFPs with low ductility at room temperature. More importantly, the promising geometric accuracy without trimming can be obtained by this new method, and multiple axisymmetric parts can also be formed within a cycle time.