Evaluation of Single Point Incremental Forming Process for Parabolic AA6082 Cups

In search for new manufacturing process, Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) emerged to be one of the useful processes for forming complicated shapes. This is a flexible forming process which eliminates the die, punch and errors due to them. It is widely used for batch production of different shapes which has applications in diverse fields like automobile, aerospace, medical industry, packaging industry etc. The equipment requirement of SPIF process is very simple, which includes; standard 3-axis CNC machine, a rotating spherical or hemispherical tool and a clamping setup. The SPIF is a sheet metal forming technique where a sheet is deformed locally. The forming of sheet due to a series of local deformation increases the formability of the sheet, when compared to conventional sheet forming process. The present work was to study the formability of parabolic cup on AA6082 sheet using SPIF process. For validating the results of simulation, a parabolic cup was drawn on AA6082 sheet using SPIF process on a CNC machine. The deformed patterns of grid on formed cups from experimentation were similar to that of deformed pattern of mesh in simulated cups from FEA. The experimental strains of the formed cups were within the forming limits, as there was no fracture observed.