Slide-Bend Forming of Very Thin Metal Sheet Using Slide-Ironing Tool

Abstract

Characteristics of slide-bend forming were investigated. In this process, foil specimens can be bent to various shaped products by indenting and sliding a tool. The effects of the tool indentation load, the foil thickness and the number of slide repetition on the bending angle were examined experimentally for three kinds of foil materials. In addition, the deformation of bent region was examined using a rigid-plastic finite element analysis. Bending angle increased with increasing the indentation load or decreasing the foil thickness. When the number of slide repetition increased, the bending angle increased slightly. The slide repetition can be effective for adjusting bending angle slightly. By sliding a thin edge-shaped tool relative to the foil specimen, bending angle and radius of curvature of specimens can be controlled freely.