• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.177-183
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• 2015

Incremental sheet metal forming is a manufacturing process to produce thin parts using sheet metals by a series of small incremental deformation. The process rarely needs dedicated dies and molds, thus, preparation time for the process is relatively short as to be compared to conventional metal forming. Spring back in sheet metal working is very common, which causes critical errors in dimensions. Incremental sheet metal forming is not fully investigated yet. Hence, incremental sheet metal forming frequently produces inaccurate parts. This paper proposes a method to minimize dimensional errors to improve shape accuracy of products manufactured by incremental forming. This study conducts experiments using an exclusive incremental forming machine and the material for these experiments are sheets of aluminum AL1015. This research defines a process parameter and selects a few factors for the experiments. The parameters employed in this paper are tool feed rate, tool diameter, step depth, material thickness, forming method, dies applied, and tool path method. In addition, their levels for each factor are determined. The plan of the experiments is designed using orthogonal array $L_8$ ($2^7$) which requires minimum number of experiments. Based on the measurements, dimensional errors are collected both on the tool contacted surfaces and on the non-contacted surfaces. The distances between the formed surfaces and the CAD models are scanned and recorded using a commercial software product. These collected data are statistically analyzed and ANOVAs (analysis of variances) are drawn up. From the ANOVAs, this paper concludes that the process parameters of tool diameter, forming depth, and forming method are the significant factors to reduce the errors on the tool contacted surface. On the other hand, the experimental factors of forming method and dies applied are the significant factors on the non-contacted surface. However, the negative forming method always produces better accuracy than the positive forming method.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.128-131
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• 2000

The technology of incremental forming has drawn attention for small-batch production of sheet metal components. In the present investigation a forming tool containing a freely-rotating ball was developed and applied to forming experiments. Deformation characteristics including crack occurred during forming with this tool was examined for full annealed Al1050 sheet. The finite element analysis was successfully applied to this special type of forming process, and provided results that agree well with the measurements.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.412-419
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• 2008

Using lightweight materials in vehicle manufacturing in order to reduce energy consumption is one of the most effective approach to decrease pollutant emissions. As a lightweight material, magnesium is increasingly employed in automotive parts. However, because of its hexagonal closed-packed(HCP) crystal structure, in which only the basal plane can move, the magnesium alloy sheets show low ductility and formability at room temperature. Thus the press forming of magnesium alloy sheets has been performed at elevated temperature within range of $200^{\circ}C{\sim}250^{\circ}C$. Here we try the possibility of sheet metal forming at room temperature by adopting incremental forming technique with rotating tool, which is so called as rotational-incremental sheet forming(RISF). In this rotational-incremental sheet forming the spindle tool rotates on the surface of the sheet metal and moves incrementally with small pitch to fit the sheet metal on the desired shape. There are various variables defining the formability of sheet metals in the incremental forming such as speed of spindle, pitch size, lubricants, etc. In this study, we clarified the effects of spindle speed and pitch size upon formability of magnesium alloy sheets at room temperature. In case of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4mm of pitch size with hemispherical rotating tool of 6.0mm radius, the maximum temperature at contact area between rotating tool and sheet metal were $119.2^{\circ}C,\;130.8^{\circ}C,\;and\;177.3^{\circ}C$. Also in case of 300, 500, and 700rpm of spindle speed, the maximum temperature at the contact area were $109.7^{\circ}C,\;130.8^{\circ}C\;and\;189.8^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.44-47
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• 2002

In order to make a doubly curved sheet metal effectively, a sheet metal forming process has been developed by adopting the flexibility of the incremental forming process and the principle of bending deformation which causes slight deformation to thickness. The developed process is an unconstrained forcing process with no holder. For this study, the experimental equipment is set up with the roll set which consists of two pairs of support rolls and one center roll. In the experiments using aluminum sheets and FEM simulation, it is found that the curvature of the formed sheet metal is determined by controlling the distance between supporting rolls in pairs and the forming depth of the center roll. The FEM simulation of the forming process using the roll set along the one path shows the distributions of the curvatures in two directions along the path, and gives information about the characteristics of the proposed forming process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 1999.03b
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• pp.18-21
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• 1999

In this study in order to make doubly-curved sheet metal effectively a sheet metal forming process has been developed by adopting the flexibility of the incremental forming process and the principle of bending deformation which causes slight deformation to thickness The developed process is an unconstrained forming process with no holder. For this study the experimental equipment is set up with the punch-set which consists of two pairs of lower support-punches and one upper center-punch. In the experiments using aluminum sheet it is found that the curvature of the formed sheet metal is determined by controlling the distance between supporting punches in pairs and the forming depth of the center-punch. and the edge-forming method is proposed for forming the sheet metal into the balanced shape. The equation using process variables such as the distance between supporting punches in pairs and the forming depth of the center-punch is proposed for the prediction of the radii of curvatures of the formed shape and it is corrected by the experimental results and the FEM simulation results about whether springback takes place. It is found that according o the simulation there is a certain set of the distance between a pair of supporting punches and the forming depth of the center-punch which causes a little springback. It is thus shown that the radii of curvatures of the formed sheet metal can be predicated by the corrected equation unless significant springback occurs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.800-805
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• 2013

Incremental forming of sheet metal is a modern method of forming sheet metal, where parts can be formed without the use of dedicated dies. Existing experimental configurations for incremental forming can be broadly classified into two categories, i.e., negative and positive forming. In this paper, forming qualities such as shape accuracy and surface roughness of Al 1050 material were discussed for different forming methods. The formed and the corresponding opposing surfaces were measured with a three-dimensional scanner and a surface roughness tester. It was found that in terms of shape accuracy, the best opposing surface was obtained with positive forming, whereas the worst formed surface was obtained with negative forming; furthermore, the opposing surface is always better than the formed surface, regardless of the forming method used.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.978-981
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• 2005

In order to manufacture a doubly curved sheet metal effectively, a flexible incremental roll forming process has been developed by adopting the advantages of the incremental forming process and the roll forming process by combining inherent flexibility of the incremental forming process and continuous deformation of the roll forming process. The forming method has been further enhanced to form general quadrilateral blanks (including a square, a rectangle, a symmetrical trapezoid and an asymmetrical trapezoid, etc.) into doubly curved shapes by controlling the forming paths developed by various experiments.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.122-128
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• 2004

In order to make a doubly-curved sheet metal effectively, a sheet metal forming process has been developed by adopting the flexibility of the incremental forming process and the principle of bending deformation which causes slight deformation in thickness. The developed process is an unconstrained forming process with no holder. For this study, the experimental equipment is set up with the roll set which consists of two pairs of support rolls and one center roll. In the experiments using aluminum sheets, it is found that the curvature of the formed sheet metal is determined by controlling the distance between supporting rolls in pairs and the forming depth of the center roll and it also depends on the thickness of the sheet metal. In order to check the effect of process parameters on the generation of sheet metal curvatures in this process, the orthogonal array is adopted. From the experimental results, among the process parameters, the distance between supporting rolls in pairs along the direction of one principal radius of curvature as well as the forming depth and the thickness of the material is shown to influence the generation of curvature in the same direction significantly. That is, the other distance between supporting rolls in pairs which are not located in the same direction of one principal radius of curvature, does not have an significant effect on the generation of the curvature in that direction. It mainly affects the generation of curvature in its own direction with the forming depth and the thickness of the material.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2003.08a
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• pp.53-57
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• 2003

In order to make a doubly curved sheet metal effectively, a sheet metal farming process has been developed by adopting the flexibility of the incremental forming process and the principle of bending deformation which causes slight deformation to thickness. The developed process is an unconstrained forming process with no holder. For this study, the experimental equipment is set up with the roll set which consists of two pairs of support rolls and one center roll. In the experiments using aluminum sheets, it is found that the curvature of the formed sheet metal is determined by controlling the distance between supporting rolls in pairs and the forming depth of the center roll and it also depends on the thickness of the sheet metal. In order to check the effect of process parameters on the generation of sheet metal curvatures in this process, the orthogonal array is adopted. From the experimental results, among the process parameters, the distance between supporting rolls in pairs along the same direction of one principle radius of curvature as well as the forming depth and the thickness of the material is shown to influence the generation of curvature in the same direction significantly. That is, the other distance between supporting rolls in pairs which are not located in the same direction of one principle radius of curvature, does not have an significant effect on the generation of the curvature in that direction. It just affects the generation of curvature in its own direction mainly with the forming depth and the thickness of the material.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.279-283
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• 2011

Recently incremental sheet metal forming (ISF) has used widely in making prototypes and small-volume products in automotive industry etc. We apply the ISF to make a 1/4 sized automobile body-in-white. First, ISF tests for rectangular shaped cup have been performed to clarify the formability denoting the relationship between the component wall angle and maximum cup height of safe forming. Next, a CAD model for the automobile was designed and segmented into several components in order to accommodate the working space of the CNC machine we adopted and the formability of the sheet metal. Then, a CAM software was employed to generate the tool path for manufacturing wooden dies and all the small parts. Finally, the different parts were joined into a single component by laser welding after the ISF process. By using the ISF we successfully produced the 1/4 sized automobile body-in-white.