Experimental Investigation of Incremental Sheet Metal Forming to Manufacture Complex Parts

Incremental Sheet Metal Forming (ISF) is one of the recent metal forming techniques under the umbrella of dieless metal forming for the manufacturing of sheet metal parts in small batches and its prototypes. The effect of process parameters such as spindle speed, tool diameter, and feed rate on product quality and surface roughness on a conical product made of Aluminum alloy 1050 were investigated. Initially, experimentation was conducted for the manufacturing of simple conical parts to identify optimal process parameters. After successfully manufacturing a simple part, within the chosen range of parameters, no failures have occurred. Based on this, the complex-shaped part is produced using the highest feed rate to reduce the forming time. The complex-shaped part adopted in this study is an automotive hood part. Taguchi method is used to select the right combination of parameters for manufacturing of conical shape part, and then applied to manufacture complex-shape part.