Experimental and numerical study on deformation behavior of doubly curved metal plates during incremental bending process

Doubly curved metal plates are widely used in various industrial fields, so many efforts have been made to achieve the required doubly curved metal plates at reasonable quality and high efficiency in the last few decades. This paper presents a flexible forming process called incremental bending to achieve the doubly curved metal plates. The basic deformation behavior of the metal plates during the incremental bending process, including the loading force distribution and springback amount distribution along the whole surface of the metal plates, was investigated and analyzed based on experiments and numerical simulation. Results show that the maximum loading force and the springback amount of the metal plates are significantly influenced by the punching position while not by the incremental step. The results provide an important theoretical foundation for the practical application of the incremental bending process for achieving various doubly curved metal plates in the future.