Experimental Investigation on the Geometrical Accuracy of the CNC Multi-Pass Sheet Metal Spinning Process

Abstract

The geometrical accuracy of multi-pass sheet metal spinning products is crucial in many applications. Aerospace, petroleum, and chemical industries motivated the development of modern spun components of complicated shapes with special functionality, but a substantial research lag exists behind this progress. Due to the localized plastic deformation involved, careful control of dimensions and form is required in spinning procedures. In this study, two sets of experiments were implemented for cup manufacturing using a retrofitted computer numerically controlled (CNC) spinning machine to identify the critical factors affecting product geometry and reveal their influence on the shape accuracy of the spun cups. The first set is a screening experiment to determine the most significant parameters and the second provides the optimum processing conditions affecting cup quality. The feed ratio, number of spin-forming passes, spinning ratio, and lubrication were found to have the most important effect on the geometry of the spun cups. Optimum quality with a higher processing speed (productivity) was achieved under a lubricated condition using a larger number of spin-forming passes at a high feed ratio, diminishing the commonly adopted rule of slow spinning for accurate products and reflecting a significance for state-of-the-art spinning practice. The findings of this paper introduce a basis for a spinning quality database.