Sheet metal forming - a new kind of forge for the future?

Within the last years in sheet metal forming a trend towards forming at elevated temperatures as well as temperature assisted forming technologies can be observed. This development is caused by the increasing need on light and high strength materials in order to fulfill the demands of light weight structures. The decision which kind of temperature assistance is the most useful in order to improve the formability of the material depends on a hugh number of process influencing parameters, like e.g. the material itself, the geometry of the component, the number of forming operations etc.. In this paper the general possibility to separate different temperature assisted forming processes with regard to the used materials will be introduced. The different forming procedures will be explained and discussed. Examples with an industrial relevance are shown.