a study on the forming of sheet metal parts using multi-point forming technology

in recent years, in order to reducing die design and manufacturing costs, multi point forming technique has gained an increasing interest because of its high flexibility. in this process, the conventional fixed shape solid die sets are replaced with a pair of opposite matrices of controllable elements. in this paper, the fundamental principles of multi-point forming was described and the possibility of forming the one sheet metal part by this technique was investigated experimentally and analyzed using finite element simulation. wrinkles and dimples are the most typical defects in multi-point forming of sheet metal. by the proper selection of process parameters the sound cup with good surface quality and uniform thickness distribution can be formed. the results obtained demonstrated that multi-point forming technology can be used as an effective and economic tool to the forming of single parts with different shapes and is cost-effective.