The Influence of Geometrical Parameters on the Incremental Forming Process for Knee Implants Analyzed by Numerical Simulation

Abstract

In this paper the authors intend to examine by numerical simulation one of the newest methods for obtaining the knee condylar surface, namely by incremental forming starting from a commercially pure titanium (CP Ti) sheet. In order to study the influence of the geometrical parameters, the authors chose to vary the material thickness, the punch diameter and the vertical step of the punch. Two different values of the hemispherical punch diameter (d = 4 and 6 mm), two different initial thicknesses of the blank (t = 1 and 1.2 mm) and two different vertical step values (s = 0.6 and 1 mm) are taken into consideration. The numerical results of the simulations were centered on determining the thinning of the sheet, the major principal strain, the springback, the process forces and the manner in which these are influenced by the geometrical parameters that were varied.