Colloquia

Summary

Sheet metal forming is widely used in the metal industry. These processes are usually done with dedicated tools such as a die set. While this is efficient and cheap for high-volume and low variety products, it is less suitable for production of small series, due to substantial die cost and development time. Incremental sheet forming can be used as an alternative as it does not use a die, but deforms the sheet gradually using one or more robotic manipulators. This promising production method is not commonly used yet due to limited geometric accuracy. Literature hints that using a backing force in some form can improve forming results. In this thesis, a simulation of a simplified 2D incremental sheet forming model is used to investigate the effect of the support tool on the deformation of the product. It is identified how different parameters affect the product deformation, and valuable insights are derived that can be used to properly set the position and force applied on the support tool during incremental sheet forming.