Efficient force prediction for incremental sheet forming and experimental validation

Incremental sheet forming (ISF) has been attractive during the last decades because of its greater flexibility, increased formability and reduced forming forces. However, traditional finite element simulation used for force prediction is significantly time consuming. This study aims to provide an efficient analytical model for tangential force prediction. In the present work, forces during the cone-forming process with different wall angles and step-down sizes are recorded experimentally. Different force trends are identified and discussed with reference to different deformation mechanisms. An efficient model is proposed based on the energy method to study the deformation zone in a cone-forming process. The effects of deformation modes from shear, bending and stretching are taken into account separately by two sub-models. The final predicted tangential forces are compared with the experimental results which show an average error of 6 and 11 % in respect to the variation of step-down size and wall angle in the explored limits, respectively. The proposed model would greatly improve the prediction efficiency of forming force and benefit both the design and forming process.