Forming strategies and Process Modelling for CNC Incremental Sheet Forming

G. Hirtl, J. Ames', M. Bambachl/ R. Kopp' (1)

1
Materials Technology/Precision Forming, Saarland University, Saarbrucken, Germany
2
Metal Forming Institute, RVVTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany
Submitted by R. Kopp, Aachen Germany

Abstract
Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) is a process capable of producing complex sheet components by the CNC
movement of a simple tool in combination with simplified dies. Earlier work revealed two major process limits,
namely the limitation on the maximum achievable wall angle, and the occurrence of geometric deviations. The
work detailed in this paper focuses on forming strategies to overcome these process limits, including the
processing of tailor rolled blanks. Additionally, finite element modelling of the process is presented and
discussed with respect to the prediction of the forming limits of ISF.

Keywords:
Forming, Sheet metal, Kinematic

1 INTRODUCTION
Deep drawing is a very cost-effective and well-established
process for the mass production of sheet components.
However, because of the high costs and long processing
time for die manufacturing it is not economical for small
batch production, rapid prototyping and large sheet
components with a complex geometry.
The incremental sheet forming process (ISF) has been
developed to close the existing gap in small batch
production and prototyping. It is characterised by a
kinematic forming approach, i.e. a part is produced by the
CNC movement of a simple tool in combination with
simplified dies [I-41.
Earlier work addressed aspects such as limit strains,
geometric accuracy, surface quality and mechanical
properties for various demonstrator components made of
mild steel, stainless steel, aluminium and titanium [5-71. It
has revealed two major process limits, both becoming
predominant for steep part areas, namely excessive
thinning, and deviations from the target geometry.
In the present paper, forming strategies to overcome the
existing limits will be given. In certain cases, the use of
tailor rolled blanks with a varying thickness can be shown
to be of positive effect. In addition, the local stress state
under the action of the tool is investigated by finite element
simulations as it is considered the key to understanding the
forming limits observed in ISF.
2 PROCESS TECHNOLOGY
2.1 Process description
The conventional forming strategy in ISF consists of a
single forming stage where the tool traces along a
sequence of contour lines with a small vertical pitch motion
in between. Generally, a distinction can be made between
'single point forming', where the bottom contour of the part
is supported by a rig, and 'two-point forming', where a full
or partial positive die supports critical surface areas of the
part (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Process variants
2.2 Process limit: formability
In contrast to classical sheet drawing the plastic
deformation zone in ISF is very small and strictly limited to
the contact area between tool and workpiece. Visioplastic
evaluation and optical deformation measurement of test
pieces also show that the deformation mode on flat
surfaces is very close to plane strain conditions [6].
Accordingly, volume constancy leads to the so-called 'sine-
law' [5] that relates the initial (to) and actual ( t 7 ) sheet
thickness for a given wall angle a (Figure 1):
t 7 = to~sin(90"
- a) (1)
Due to excessive thinning, this relation limits the range of
possible flange angles to approximately 60" for 1-1.5 mm
A199.5 and mild steel sheets. As a consequence, the
forming kinematics inherent in ISF entail the following
drawbacks:
the limitation on the maximum wall angle restricts the
potential scope of shapes and applications
the strong dependence on the feature angle can lead
to an inhomogeneous thickness distributions in the
final part
These drawbacks motivate to investigate multistage
forming strategies to be presented in section 3.1.
The forming limits observed in ISF are significantly larger
than expected from a typical forming limit diagram (FLD)
for mild steel and strongly dependent on process
parameters such as the size of the tool and the vertical
pitch [6]. This influence of the process parameters on the
limit strains has been investigated by finite element
simulations using a damage model (see section 4.2).
2.3 Process limit: geometric accuracy
A second process limit arises from the fact that the tool
path is generated exclusively from the geometric
information specified by the CAD model of the desired part.
Following this tool path, the tool tries to impose the desired
shape on the sheet. This strategy would only be successful
if the deformation was purely plastic, but the elastic parts
of the deformation entail a local 'spring back of the sheet
when the tool moves on. In addition, we expect the build-
up of significant residual stresses due to the cyclic
plastification and unloading. In fact, depending on the tool
size and vertical pitch the tool contacts an arbitrary spot on
the sheet between 10 and 100 times. This can lead to
considerable deviations from the target geometry,
especially for complex parts (Figure 2). Consequently,
strategies to control the geometric accuracy are of
particular importance.
Figure 2: Process limit: geometric accuracy
3 FORMING STRATEGIES
3.1 Multistage forming
Inspired by the ideas for multistage forming strategies for
axisymmetric components [8], a modified multistage
forming strategy (Figure 3) has been developed for non-
axisymmetric parts.
Figure 3: Multistage forming strategy.
The following stages constitute the multistage strategy:
In the first 'preforming stage' (Figure 3a) the blank is
clamped on the blank holder and a preform with a
shallow wall angle (45" in this example) is produced by
using the regular ISF process and a partial die.
Then, a number of stages follow in which the pitch
motion of the forming tool alternates from upward
(Figure 3b) to downward (Figure 3c).
From one stage to the next the tool path is generally
designed with an increase in angle of 3" or 5". This
means that a 7 to 12 stages are needed to produce
components with an angle of about 80".
The described forming strategy has been successfully
tested for the four-sided pyramid depicted in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Preform and four-sided pyramid with a = 81".
To determine the wall thinning the produced components
were cut along the x-axis and the actual sheet thickness
was measured (Figure 5). The measurement of a pyramid
with an angle of 81" produced by using the multistage
forming strategy clearly shows thinning that is less than the
theoretically expected value, given by the 'sine law" (eq.
(1)). Heavy thinning of the flange and consequent failure
are prevented by the preforming and subsequent
multistage forming, since a larger portion of sheet volume
is included in the forming process.
Figure 5: Measurement of sheet thickness (81" pyramid).
3.2 Use of tailor rolled blanks (TRB)
The flexible rolling process as detailed in [9] allows to
produce blanks with a predefined thickness profile without
joining operations. It has been designed for applications
where load-adapted or load-optimised structures with a
specified thickness profile are needed.
In the context of incremental sheet forming, TBRs could in
principle be used as an alternative to the multistage
forming strategy. With an increased initial sheet thickness
in steep part areas, TRBs could allow to compensate for
the excessive sheet thinning. This could in some cases
allow for
the forming of steeper flanges and
a more homogeneous sheet thickness distribution
First attempts were made with A199.5 blanks of the size
320 mm x 250 mm. At the Metal Forming Institute
(Aachen), the initial sheet thickness of approximately
1.95 mm has been reduced to 1.26 mm in a centred layer
of 70 mm width by flexible rolling.
With these blanks, a pyramidal component with two
different flange angles, 45" and 63", respectively, has been
produced using the conventional ISF process. The shallow
fsteeol side walls are located in the thin fthickl laver of the
\ I 1
blank (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Definition of geometry and blank orientation
This set up has been chosen according to the sine law in
order to obtain the same wall thickness on all side walls.
After forming, the sheet thickness has been measured
along sections in rolling (RD) and transverse direction (TD)
(Figure 7). With about 0.9 mm, an almost homogeneous
sheet thickness has been achieved on all flanges despite
their different wall angles. Further to that, it is worth
mentioning that the use of a sheet section of
1.95 mm thickness allows to produce the 63" side walls
without failure.
Figure 7: Radial course of the sheet thickness.
3.3 Improving the geometric accuracy
Since earlier work [5] had shown that the process is very
reproducible an attempt was started to develop a general
correction algorithm based on tool path optimisation. The
correction module engages after the regular ISF process is
finished and a first component is produced (Figure 8).
Figure 8: Regular ISF process with correction module
The following steps constitute the correction module:
A first component is produced and measured by a
coordinate measuring machine which outputs a cloud
of measured points of the component and the
corresponding target geometry points.
The deviation vector ( d ) from each measured point to
the corresponding target point is calculated, inverted
and scaled by a factor c. This yields the vector - c. d
that points at a new trial point (Figure 9).
Finally the cloud of trial points is imported to a CAD
system and a CAD model is generated to compute the
path for an improved part.
The correction module can be applied several times until a
specified tolerance is met.
Figure 9: Determination of corrected points
A 3D comparison of an uncorrected and a corrected
component after the first correction loop (Figure 10)
indicates that the developed correction module leads to a
drastic reduction in deviation.
Figure 10: Validation of the correction module.
4 FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING
An explicit FE code (ABAQUS/explicit) has been
successfully used in earlier work to simulate the ISF
process [6], as it is very suitable for highly non-linear
problems and the treatment of arbitrary contact surfaces
and conditions. In the following, two aspects of process
simulation for ISF will be considered:
0 the prediction of sheet thickness will be validated with
the forming of TRBs (see section 3.2)
0 the use of a constitutive law including damage
evolution to investigate the dependence of the
forming limits on process parameters such as tool
diameter and vertical pitch (see section 2.2)
4.1 Simulating the forming of TRBs
For the prediction of sheet thinning, a new part has been
produced using a TRB as described in section 3.2. While
the flange angles of 45" and 63", respectively, have been
maintained, the part has been reduced in height in order to
reduce the calculation time for the related FE simulation.
In the FE model, the sheet has been meshed with 3,900
shell elements, with the initial sheet thickness distribution
applied as nodal thickness values (Figure 11). A
comparison of the sheet thickness in rolling and transverse
direction (Figure 12) shows a fairly good agreement with
collated experimental data.
 Figure 11: Prediction of sheet thickness for TRBs
Figure 12: Sheet thickness validation in RD and TD
4.2 Stress state and forming limits
The stress field under the action of the tool is an important
factor with respect to the formation and growth of voids
that eventually lead to ductile fracture. Despite the good
coincidence with experiments, the applied shell elements
cannot account for the 3D stress state due to the inherent
plane stress assumption. As modelling the whole sheet
with brick elements is too demanding of computing
resources, the local stress and strain fields during forming
are investigated by means of a partial model meshed with
brick elements.
This set up has been used in earlier work [6] to analyse
the state of stress during forming. It has revealed that a
significant hydrostatic pressure is present during the
immediate action of the tool. As the presence of
hydrostatic pressure can have a huge impact on the
damage evolution during forming, a more detailed
investigation using a damage model was conducted.
Damage evolution
The Gurson-Tveergard-Needleman (GTN) constitutive law
available in ABAQUS [6] has been applied to examine the
influence of process parameters such as the tool size and
the vertical pitch on necking and the forming limits in a
qualitative manner. Applying the GTN model, calculations
for three different tool sizes (diameters DT of 30 mm,
10 mm and 6 mm) and values of the vertical pitch d,
(1 mm and 0.5 mm) have been conducted. For these
calculations, a flange angle of 65" has been chosen as this
is close to the fracture limit found experimentally (see
section 2.2).
Figure 13 gives the damage evolution during forming for all
six parameter combinations. The ordinate has been
normalised by the critical void volume fraction fc that marks
the onset of void coalescence. The abscissa has been
normalised in order to compare calculations of different
durations. Further to that, only those time ranges yielding a
non-zero contribution to the damage evolution have been
included. The damage evolution confirms qualitatively the
experimentally obtained fact that higher forming limits can
be achieved with smaller forming heads and larger values
for the vertical pitch.
Figure 13: Damage induced by forming heads of different
size for different pitch settings (f,=0.06).
5 SUMMARY
This paper gave an overview over recent developments in
incremental sheet forming and corresponding finite
element modelling. Motivated by the drawbacks of
conventional ISF, two forming strategies have been put
forward to help enlarge the range of potential process
applications, namely a multistage forming strategy to
produce steep flanges of up to 81", and a correction
algorithm to enhance the geometric accuracy. Besides
that, the use of tailor rolled blanks has been shown to be of
positive effect in certain cases. In addition, process
modelling using an explicit solver has been applied to
predict the sheet thickness distribution for the forming of
tailor rolled blanks. Finally, the GTN damage law helped to
model the dependence of fracture limits on process
parameters in a qualitative way.
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