A Review of Flow Forming Processes and Mechanisms

Abstract

After years of pure academic interest and niche applications, today the flow forming process is growing in its importance in the forming industry, due to increasing demand in aerospace, automotive and defense industries. The review surveys academic paper of last fifty years, in order to evaluate the current state of art for academic and practitioner. Theoretical and experimental approaches are collected and compared evaluating their prediction models. Several knowledge gaps can be identified. Stress and strain tensors evolutions are not determined for workpiece, due to high computational cost and missing identification of correct finite elements approach. Final microstructure is often evaluated case by case but its evolution during plastic deformation is not studied. Residual stress and final material proprieties, as corrosion behavior, have been not studied numerically or experimentally. Tool path impact and alternative geometries are not deeply explored. Process experimental optimization and characterization through Design of Experiment is still limited to a few papers and usually not well developed.