Incremental Forming of 3D Structured Aluminum Sheet

In this paper we investigated the deformation characteristic of embossed aluminum sheet in the incremental sheet forming process which has frequently used in the design verification and the trial manufacturing of sheet products. The single point incremental forming (SPIF) experiments for the rectangular cone forming using the CNC machine with a chemical wood-machined die and a circular tool shape showed that the formability of the embossed sheet are better than that of the flat sheet in view of the maximum angle of cone forming. This comes from the fact that the embossed sheet between the tool and the elastic die wall is plastically compressed and the flatted area contributes to increase the plastic deformation. Also the tool path along the outward movement from the center showed a better formability than that of the inward movement from the edge. However the surface quality for the tool path along the outward movement evaluated from the surface deflection is inferior than that of the tool path along the inward movement. The experimental results and detail forming mechanism of the 3D structured sheet in incremental forming were reviewed with a finite element simulation using ABAQUS software.