• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.549-556
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• 2010

In general, materials that can be used to form elastic pads, such as urethane and rubber, are often used in flexible forming processes by inserting the pads between a blank and flexible die for smoothing the forming surface that is formed by a reconfigurable die. In this study, the effects of the elastic pad on formability in the flexible forming process for sheet metals are investigated by performing numerical simulations. In the simulation, the hyperelastic material model is used, where the urethane elastic pads serve as elastic cushions. Case studies are carried out for elastic materials with different hardness values and thicknesses. The results are used to evaluate formability by comparing the configuration of the deformed blank and its major cross-sectional profiles. It is verified that the elastic pad used in the flexible forming process for sheet materials should be hard and that its thickness should be chosen appropriately.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.528-538
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• 2011

As a forming method for curved hull plates more efficient than the flame bending, mechanical bending using multi point press forming and die-less forming is discussed in this paper. the mechanical forming is a flexible manufacturing system for automatically forming of hull parts. It is especially suited to varied curved parts. This paper discusses a multiple point pressing machine composed of a pair of reconfigurable punches in order to achieve the rapid forming of curved hull plates using division forming and presents how forming information is obtained from the given design surface. Although the mechanical forming can be efficient in the metal forming, spring back after pressing is a phenomenon which must be carefully considered when quantifying the process variables. If the spring back is not accurately controlled, the fabricated shell plate cannot meet assembly tolerance. This paper describes the principles to calculate the proper stroke of each punch at the divided areas. the strokes are determined by an iterative process of sequential pressing and spring back compensation from an unfolded flat shape to its given design surface. FEA(finite element analysis) is used to simulate the spring back of the plate and the IDA(iterative displacement adjustment) method adjusts the offset of pressing punches from the deformation results and the design surface. The shape deviations of two surfaces due to spring back are compensated by integrated system using FEA and IDA method. For the practical application, It is aimed to develop an integrated system that can automatically perform the compensation process and calculate strokes of punches of the double sides' reconfigurable multiple-press machine and some experimental results obtained with mechanical bending are presented.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.75-82
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• 2008

Flame bending has been extensively used in the shipbuilding industry for hull plate forming In flame bending it is difficult to obtain the desired shape because the residual deformation dependson the complex temperature distribution and the thermal plastic strain. Mechanical bending such as reconfigurable press forming multi-point press forming or die-less forming has been found to improve the automation of hull plateforming because it can more accurately control the desired shape than line heating. Multi-point forming is a process in which external forces are used to form metal work-pieces. Therefore it can be a flexible and efficient forming technique. This paper presents an optimal approach to determining the press-stroke for multi-point press forming of curved shapes. An integrated configuration of Finite element analysis (FEA) and spring-back compensation algorithm is developed to calculate the strokes of the multi-point press. Not only spring-back is modeled by elastic plastic shell elements but also an iterative algorithm to compensate the spring-back is applied to adjust the amount of pressing stroke. An iterative displacement adjustment (IDA) method is applied by integration of the FEA procedure and the spring-back compensation work. Shape deviation between the desired surface and deform￡d plate is minimized by the IDA algorithm.