Incremental sheet forming

Abstract

The production of sheet metal parts has long been associated with either skilled manual labour or to the use of expensive tooling for mass production. This led to two classical application fields: the manufacture of unique parts with a high cost and low accuracy, and the mass production of parts after a high tolling investment. The development of incremental sheet metal forming technologies, first introduced as incremental dieless forming in the 1960s and recently studied and developed since the 2000s, has created the opportunity to industrially manufacture unique or low volume sheet metal parts at a low cost and better and repetitive accuracy. Among other applications like prototyping, low volume production and customization, these new processes lead to a new possible method for rapid tooling. To understand the ISF operation principle, as well as limitations, is fundamental to grant a feasible sheet metal part design. These perceptions are indispensable for the process of sheet metal rapid tool development.