A force measuring based strategy for failure prevention in incremental forming

Incremental forming processes show a number of advantages compared to the traditional processes but, at the same time, some drawbacks are clearly known. Current problems, include the slowness of the process, low accuracy and a lack of knowledge in the field of material formability. This paper is focused on the latter issue: an industrially oriented methodology for detecting the approach of failure in incremental forming is proposed. The approach is based on the analysis of the trend of the forming force in order to assess whether the process can be run safely. If not, a proper strategy, to avoid material failure, is proposed and experimentally validated. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.