Incremental Bulging of Sheet Metal Using Water Jet and Shots

Abstract

As a result of the trend of consumer demand for many stamped sheet metal products, the study of flexible and incremental sheet metal forming and the small-scale production of stamped goods has received considerable attention. In the previous study, Iseki has developed the incremental sheet metal bulging method using water jet for the clean forming without the need for lubricating material. Though he succeeded in shaping wide range of complex shapes of an annealed aluminum sheet (thickness 0.3 mm, tensile strength 100 MPa ), for example, pyramidal shells, shells of pyramid frustums, shallow pans and embossed panels, he was completely unsuccessful in forming shells of a stainless steel sheet (thickness 0.3 mm, tensile strength 640 MPa ). In the present paper, an incremental bulging method of sheet metal using water jet and shots has been proposed to form shells of a stainless steel sheet, and the characteristics of deformation, strain distributions and the forming limit were experimentally studied.