Incremental high speed forming processes

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Werner Homberg; Dr.-Ing. Verena Psyk
• Subject Area: Primary Shaping and Reshaping Technology, Additive Manufacturing
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 425908346

The economical manufacturing of complex parts with different variations and yet small lot sizes is almost impossible using conventional forming procedures like in multi-stage deep drawing due to the geometrical limitations of the tools. Even minor geometrical changes require expensive measures of adjusting existing tools or producing new ones. The proposed project yields to develop innovative flexible manufacturing processes along with a suitable tooling technology for a wide spectrum of applications. Specifically, high-speed metal forming processes based on high impulse current: electrohydraulic forming (EHF) and electromagnetic forming (EMF) will be developed into electrohydraulic incremental forming (EHIF) and electromagnetic incremental forming (EMIF) re-spectively by integrating an incremental approach to the mentioned operations.This results in combining the advantages of high speed and incremental metal forming which enables flexible adjustments for the manufacturing of complex parts with different variations in small lot sizes while complying to the geometrical and dimensional requirements. For this purpose numerical in addition to experimental analysis on incremental high-speed metal forming will be carried out on selected materials. Here the emphasis is on Aluminum alloy EN AW 6016 and EN AW 1050. For studying the possibility of applying the proposed process on other materials, copper alloy Cu-DHP, steel DC04 and stainless steel 1.4301 are examined. The planned analysis aim to determine the interrelations between the machine, tools, process and workpiece parameters on one hand, and the possibility of achieving the required quality requirements of the produced part in terms of geometry, accuracy and surface quality in addition to the hardening characteristics of the materials on the other hand. The numerical analysis aim to design the required tools for experiments initially, in addition to study process parameters that are hard or impossible to obtain through measurement technology in advanced stages of this work. The experimental part has the objective of validating the numerical analysis, in addition to analyzing aspects of the forming process that help in minimizing unnecessary numerical simulation effort and costs.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants