Experimental Investigations on Forming Time in Negative Incremental Sheet Metal Forming Process

Abstract

The prominent features of incremental sheet metal forming (ISMF) process make it suitable to cover the requirements of today's industries and various preferences of costumers. In this article, the forming time aspect in negative ISMF process was studied. This aspect was investigated by disclosing the effects of four different process parameters: forming tool diameter, vertical tool pitch, feed rate, and support type. By using Taguchi analysis with the help of design of experiment (DOE) and analysis of variance (ANOVA), the effects of four process parameters and different influential combinations have been studied to optimize parameter levels to realize minimum forming time. The analysis results have shown that the most important parameter that has the greatest effect on the forming time is the vertical pitch followed by the feed rate and then tool diameter. The confirmation experiments have shown that the interaction between the significant parameters plays a prominent role in the negative ISMF process. It is demonstrated that Taguchi parameter design, response table, response graph, and ANOVA are a systematic procedure where the optimum level for each design parameter and their interactions can be effectively and efficiently identified to produce the minimum of forming time.