Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical

Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering

Manufacture
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The pillowing tendency of materials in single-point incremental forming: Experimental and finite
element analyses
KA Al-Ghamdi and G Hussain
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering Manufacture published online 29
April 2014
DOI: 10.1177/0954405414530906

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Original Article

Proc IMechE Part B:

J Engineering Manufacture
1–10
The pillowing tendency of materials in Ó IMechE 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0954405414530906

Experimental and finite element pib.sagepub.com

analyses

KA Al-Ghamdi1 and G Hussain2

Abstract
The pillow is a defect that adversely affects the geometrical accuracy as well as the formability in single-point incremental
forming. With a main objective to control this defect, the effects of mechanical properties of material on pillowing are
examined in this work. To identify the mechanical property that significantly affects pillowing, single-point incremental
forming tests are conducted using a variety of materials (i.e. 11). It is found that a property (i.e. area reduction at tensile
fracture) that controls the formability of a material in single-point incremental forming does not have any significant
effect on its pillowing tendency. Interestingly, hardening exponent (i.e. a property that has controlling influence on the
stretch-ability of material) appears to be the most influential property that determines the pillowing tendency of sheet
metals in single-point incremental forming. Furthermore, the pillowing tendency of a material decreases with the
decrease in this particular property. This, according to finite element analysis, occurs because strain localization around
the tool/sheet contact correspondingly increases. To select and rank materials with respect to the pillowing behavior, a
formula describing the property–pillowing relationship is proposed. As a secondary objective, the correlation between
pillowing and forming depth is also investigated in this work. It is shown that initially the pillow progresses as the forming
depth increases. However, after forming has been carried out to a certain depth, the pillow begins to regress, most likely
due to strain hardening of sheet metal. In conclusion, it is suggested to lower the hardening exponent of sheet metals in
order to control pillowing in single-point incremental forming.

Keywords
Incremental forming, defect, pillow, mechanical property, analysis

Date received: 19 December 2013; accepted: 17 March 2014

Introduction In addition to simplicity, the higher formability com-

Single-point incremental forming (SPIF) is a process of
converting a flat sheet-blank into a contoured shape
through successive increments of deformation, which
are imposed making use of a simple hemispherical-end
cylindrical tool. The motion of the tool is controlled by
a predefined trajectory, generated from the computer-
aided design (CAD) model of the component to be pro-
duced. The process is assumed to belong to the metal
spinning family.1 However, unlike spinning, it does not
employ any counter mandrel to form a part. Moreover,
contrary to spinning, the SPIF process can also perform
asymmetric forming besides axisymmetric. Owing to
these characteristics, the process has potential to replace
not only spinning but also press forming, a group of
classical sheet forming operations characterized by high
tooling cost and long lead time.
pared with that of conventional pressing is another
interesting and promising aspect of SPIF. Shim and
Park2 and Allwood et al.3 have proposed the localized
deformation and through-thickness shear as the major
reasons of the increased forming limits of SPIF process,
respectively. As far as the capability to process different
materials is concerned, SPIF can deform almost all
1
Department of Industrial Engineering, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eastern Mediterranean
University, North Cyprus, Turkey
Corresponding author:
G Hussain, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eastern
Mediterranean University, North Cyprus, Via Mersin-10, Turkey.
Email: ghulam.hussain@emu.edu.tr

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2 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture
types of ductile materials including metals.4–8 To attract
the manufacturers’ attention, several industrial applica-
tions (e.g. car-body panels, customized leg and dies)
of the process have been demonstrated in the litera-
ture.9–11 More details on the applications and advances
made in the process have been provided in review arti-
cles by Jeswiet et al.12 and Echrif and Hrairi.13
Where SPIF offers benefits, it also suffers from seri-
ous drawbacks of slow forming speed, poor profile
accuracy and defects which question the industrial via-
bility of the process. The latest efforts reported in
Ambrogio et al.14 have shown that the issue of slow
speed can be overcome by employing high-speed incre-
mental forming equipment (i.e. computer numerical
control (CNC) turning center). The subject of accuracy
has been addressed in Ambrogio et al.,15 Bambach
et al.,16 Hussain et al.,17 Malhotra et al.,18 Verbert
et al.,19 Duflou et al.20 and Allwood et al.21 According
to these studies, the accuracy can be improved by modi-
fying tool path, optimizing parameters, employing
multi-stage forming, using counter tool, introducing
feature-based approach, laser heating and making holes
in the blanks, respectively. The last issue of defects has
been lately studied by the authors of this work to intro-
duce three defects, namely, wall, back-fold and pil-
low.22,23 To minimize these defects, they suggested to
process sheet metals with optimal parameters. Hot
forming has been proposed as an alternative approach24
to control the last of the aforementioned three defects.
However, adaptation to this method will not only
increase the product cost but also adversely affect the
strength of formed component and the process simpli-
city, a salient feature of SPIF.
The pillow, as schematized in Figure 1(a), is an
SPIF defect which develops due to the bulging of sheet-
blank while forming a part (say cone). In our previous
study,23 it was experimentally demonstrated that exces-
sive pillowing, besides profile accuracy, causes prema-
ture sheet fracture especially at low wall angles (say 20°
as depicted in Figure 1(b)). Consequently, the forming
limit, which is usually defined as the maximum wall
angle without sheet fracturing, reduces to a range
between the maximum and minimum wall angle
(a)
hp
Sheet plane
Figure 1. (a) Schematic of pillow in the cone geometry and (b) sheet rupturing due to pillow.23
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(i.e. umax2umin). In an attempt to overcome pillow-
ing, the effects of some process parameters were investi-
gated, and it was found that tool diameter is the
principal parameter that can control pillowing. Finally,
it was proposed to employ large-size tools to reduce pil-
lowing. The study of the reason of this finding, how-
ever, was left for future.
This study has been primarily undertaken to propose
an alternative solution to control pillowing through
controlling material properties. A limited amount of
work to identify the most influential property was per-
formed earlier using one material, that is, Aluminum
AA1060.22,23 To vary the material properties, the test
material was cold rolled to three different levels. As a
result, the material strength increased, while the ducti-
lity and hardening exponent decreased correspondingly.
Due to this reason, the material property controlling
pillowing in SPIF could not be clearly identified.
Therefore, further work using various materials needs
to be carried out. To do so, a number of SPIF tests
using 11 different materials with a variety of physical
conditions obtained by employing work-hardening and
heat treatment processes are conducted. And a general
correlation between the size of pillow and the most
influential property is established. As a secondary
objective, investigations into the effect of forming depth
on pillowing are also carried out. Furthermore, an
attempt is made to find the cause of a previous finding
that was left as future work (i.e. the size of the pillow
reduces as the tool diameter increases23). To know the
mechanisms for the experimental results and to fulfill
the aforementioned future work, the finite element
analyses (FEAs) are performed. As a result of this
study, the role of mechanical properties on the pillow-
ing tendency of materials has become clarified. Thus,
an alternative solution to control pillowing in SPIF has
been revealed.
Experimental and FEA procedures
Table 1 presents the mechanical properties of 11 differ-
ent materials employed in this study. As can be seen,
materials with a variety of conditions were chosen so
(b)
Tool
Pillow
Ghamdi and Hussain 3

height
Pillow

(mm)
that generalized conclusions could be drawn. Of these

1.05
1.02
0.76

1.62
0.86
0.92

1.06
1.2
0.7
0.6

1.7
materials, one is tempered, two are work hardened and
the rest are in annealed condition. This selection pro-
HV0.1

212
140
281
276
189
41
26
43
25
35
44
vides a wide range of mechanical properties such as the
yield stress yield strength from 54 to 296 MPa, the percent elonga-
tion from 5.5% to 63%, the hardening exponent from
stress to
ultimate
Ratio of

0.04 to 0.53 and the percent reduction in area at tensile

1.4945
2.071
1.443

1.058
1.711

1.064
2.17
1.36

3.55
fracture from 24.7% to 81.5%.
1.9

1.7
To determine the mechanical properties of materials,
yield stresses
Difference of

the uni-axial tensile tests were performed. The test spe-

ultimate and

7.743
cimens (three samples along each of 0°, 45° and 90° to
131.271

147.243
49.38
86.13

18.25
121.17
489.32
the rolling direction of sheet) with 50 mm gauge length
(MPa)

48
36

105 and about 1 mm sheet thickness were cut, according to

ASTM E8 standard, on a CNC milling machine. The
thickness

20.1836
strain at

fracture

tensile tests were conducted at the cross-head speed of

20.891
20.423

20.603
20.581
tensile

21.22
21.12
20.61
20.59
20.47
21.4
True

2 mm/min with an MTS 810 tensile testing machine. In

addition to tensile tests, the hardness tests were also
performed using a Vickers hardness tester to clarify the
reduction
of area

influence of metal hardness on pillowing, if any. The

Tensile

69.21
41.53
24.75

70.45
63.66
81.5

55.5

45.8

various mechanical properties were determined follow-

(%)

75

60

59

ing the well-known procedures detailed in the interna-

Anisotropy

tional literature.
For the sake of simplicity, the frustum of cone with
0.4108
0.7654

1.2175
0.749

1.296

0.884

0.345
0.65
0.86

2.15

major diameter of 110 mm was employed as the test

0.5

geometry. To investigate the effect of mechanical prop-

hardening

erties on the pillowing tendency, the wall angle and the

exponent
Strain-

depth of frustum were kept constant at 20° and 10 mm,

0.204

0.171
0.197
0.065
0.042
0.222

0.225

0.058
0.24

0.53

respectively. However, in order to determine the influ-

0.2

ence of forming depth, the depth of test specimen was

coefficient

varied from 2 to 18 mm. To examine the correlation of

171.525
Strength

1444.53
311.92

171.23
618.11
Table 1. Average mechanical properties of sheet metals and the corresponding pillow height.

675.6

644.3

443.4

mechanical properties with the pillowing tendency, 1-

(MPa)

149
161

492

mm-thick sheets were used. But for the rest of tests,

sheet with 3 mm thickness was employed. The other
elongation

parameters were set fixed as follows: step size = 0.8

Percent

19.344

mm, tool diameter = 8 mm and feed rate = 3 m/min.

36.11

42.88

37.76
5.53

4.47
41
21

10

24

63

For all materials, except stainless steel, the mineral oil

was used as the lubricant. For stainless steel, to reduce
Ultimate

103.715

galling, an aqueous suspension of graphite was

166.56
427.54

354.24

680.83
301.42
(MPa)
stress

140.4

255.5
366.2
136
89

employed as a lubricant. In order to provide statistical

means, at least two replicates were produced for each
Yield stress

test. The pillowing tendency of the material (or part)

was defined as the maximum height of pillow (hp) as
296.27

132.65

191.52
54.34
80.43
(MPa)

283.2

indicated in Figure 1(a). The pillow height in each test

100

207
150
245
41

was measured from the center of part’s bottom, using a

depth gauge, with an accuracy of 60.01 mm.
Partially annealed
Work hardened

Work hardened

The FEAs were performed using a commercial FE

package LS-DYNA. The sheet discretization was done
Tempered
condition

Annealed
Annealed

Annealed

Annealed
Annealed
Annealed
Annealed
Material

using shell elements with (1 3 1) mm size of each ele-

ment. The simulations were carried out with compara-
tively large feed rate (i.e. 15 m/min), as compared to 3
m/min employed in the physical tests, so as to reduce
Aluminum AA1060-H24

runtime.25 The coefficient of friction, which was experi-

Aluminum AA2024-T4
Aluminum AA3003-O
Aluminum AA2024-O

Aluminum AA1060-O

mentally determined employing pin on a disk appara-

Aluminum AA1060

tus, was set as 0.12. The other parameters were set to

Copper T2-H28

the same values as adopted in the experiments. The nec-

Steel SS304
Steel 1020
Steel DDS

essary mechanical properties required for the FEAs

Steel DS
Material

were obtained from Table 1.

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4 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture
1.8
1.5
Pillow height (mm)
1.2
0.9
0.6
0.3
0 0
0 15
Percent reduction in area at tensile fracture
Figure 2. Correlations of (a) percent reduction in area at tensile fracture and (b) thickness strain at tensile fracture with the
pillow height.
1.8
1.5
Pillow height (mm)
1.2
0.9
0.6
0.3
0 rank different materials) of the overall SPIF process.
0 50
Figure 3. Correlation of yield stress with the pillow height.
Results and discussion
Effect of mechanical properties on the pillowing
tendency in SPIF
In Hussain et al.,6 it has been shown that the percent
reduction in area at tensile fracture (a mechanical prop-
erty) is a general indicator of formability in SPIF (i.e.
spif-ability). This finding dictates that besides having
controlling influence on the formability, the said prop-
erty might also control pillowing tendency of materials
in SPIF. Therefore, in an attempt to identify the most
influential property, the correlation of percent reduc-
tion in area at tensile fracture with the pillow height
(i.e. hp) was examined to begin with. It can be seen
from Figure 2(a) that the datum points are randomly
scattered, interestingly revealing that the formability
indicator of SPIF does not constitute any meaningful
relationship with the pillow height. However, a thor-
ough observation of Table 1 shows that it may be used
to rank the condition of a particular material with
respect to the pillowing tendency. For example, as can
(a) (b)
1.8
1.5
Pillow height (mm)
1.2
0.9
0.6
Aluminum Aluminum
Steel Steel 0.3
Copper Copper
30 45 60 75 90 -1.5 -1.2 -0.9 -0.6 -0.3 0
Thickness strain at tensile fracture
be noticed from Table 1, when the condition of
AA1060 alters from annealed to work hardened (i.e.
AA1060-O to AA1060-H24), the percent reduction in
area decreases from 81.5% to 70.45%, and correspond-
ingly the pillow height decreases from 1.2 to 0.62 mm.
Likewise, the pillow height of AA2024 in the annealed
state (percent reduction in area = 41.53%) is higher
than that in the tempered state (percent reduction in
area = 24.75%). Nonetheless, as obvious from Figure
Aluminum 2(a), the percent reduction in area does not form gen-
Steel eral relationship with the pillow height, and therefore,
Copper it cannot be employed as a pillowing indicator (or to
100 150 200 250 300
Yield stress (MPa)
The same applies to the fracture strain in tension test
(Figure 2(b)), the second property reported to be signif-
icant with respect to the influence on the spif-ability in
Hussain et al.6 Hence, it can be said that none of the
two formability indicators of SPIF can be used as a
general indicator of pillowing behavior of materials in
SPIF.
To find out the most appropriate property affecting
pillowing in SPIF, the correlation of each of the remain-
ing mechanical properties, listed in Table 1, was exam-
ined against pillow height. Based on R2 value (multiple
correlation factor), it was found that no relationship
exists between the pillow height and quantities such as
anisotropy, hardness, ultimate tensile stress and even
yield stress, which determines the initial yielding of a
material, as evidenced in Figure 3. However, the hard-
ening exponent and percent elongation constitute fairly
consistent relationships with the pillow height, as
depicted in Figure 4. Though the latter can also be
employed, the former being larger in R2 value seems to
be more reasonable candidate as a pillowing indicator
in the SPIF process. It is to be noted down that the
hardening exponent, consistent with Hussain et al.6,
does not constitute any meaningful relation with the
formability in SPIF. But, as found herein, it has amaz-
ing controlling influence on the pillowing tendency of
materials in SPIF.
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Ghamdi and Hussain
(a)
1.8
R² = 0.92
Max dev= ±3%
1.5
Pillow height (mm)
1.2
0.9
0.6
0.3
0 0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Hardening exponent
Figure 4. Correlations of (a) hardening exponent and (b) percent elongation with the pillow height.
The pillow height, as can be seen from Figure 4(a),
linearly increases with the increase in hardening expo-
nent, and it can be related to the hardening exponent
through the following empirical formula
hp = 0:2235n2 + 2:2498n + 0:5218
where hp is the pillow height and n is the hardening
exponent. The R2 value for the above formula is about
92%, which confirms that the data points are well fitted
to the formula’s curve. Therefore, the formula can be
reliably employed to estimate the pillow height of a
material by knowing only one of its several properties
(i.e. hardening exponent). Though the formula provides
exact estimation for the investigated conditions, it can
be used for a general purpose to rank the materials with
respect to the pillowing behavior and thus will facilitate
the material selection to design pillow-controlled
products.
In order to further clarify the role of hardening
exponent on pillowing, the relevant mechanism needs
to be clarified. However, to do so, first it is necessary
to know why pillowing of sheet occurs specifically
when the deformation in SPIF is commonly acknowl-
edged to be extremely localized. For this purpose, the
von Mises stresses (a representation of total stress state)
on the pillow site of two cones with the hardening
exponent of 0.04 (AA10160-H24) and 0.24 (AA2024-
O), respectively, were analyzed as shown in Figure 5(a).
It can be seen that the von Mises stresses are widely dis-
tributed over the pillow site, indicating that the forma-
tion of pillow is actually an outgrowth of stresses
caused by sheet deformation beneath the SPIF tool. It
also highlights that although the SPIF deformation is
local and remains confined to the tool/blank contact
area, as claimed in the literature,2 the repercussion of
this deformation (i.e. the effect of deformation stresses)
is not local.
Returning to the earlier discussion regarding the
influence of hardening exponent on the pillowing ten-
dency of sheet-blank, plastic strain on the pillow
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5
(b)
1.8
R² = 0.7934
1.5
Bulge height (mm)
1.2
0.9
0.6
Aluminum Aluminum
Steel 0.3 Steel
Copper Copper
0.6 0 20 40 60 80
Percent elongation
surface (or site) was analyzed for two materials with
the hardening exponent of 0.04 and 0.24, respectively.
It was observed that the surface strain on the pillow in
either of the cases was tensile (positive) in nature, as
demonstrated in Figure 5(b), which proposes that a pil-
ð1Þ low is most likely an outcome of sheet bulging that of
course is caused by the SPIF stresses as discussed
before and evidenced in Figure 5(a). To find the reason
why an increase in the hardening exponent promotes
pillowing, two points (A and B, respectively, one in the
tool/blank contact and the other in the center of pillow
as indicated in Figure 5(b)) on the pillow surface were
selected in each case (i.e. cones with 0.04 and 0.24 expo-
nents), and the strain analysis was conducted. It was
noticed from the strain fields that the strain in the cone
with the exponent of 0.04 (pillow height = 0.54 mm)
was relatively restricted around the tool/blank contact
zone (see Figure 5(b)): its magnitude in the cone’s cen-
ter was very small (i.e. eB ’ 1/5eA, where e stands for
strain). Whereas the strain in the other cone having the
exponent of 0.24 (pillow height = 1.1 mm) was largely
distributed over the bottom (i.e. eB ’ 1/2eA). This find-
ing reveals that a sheet with a high exponent undergoes
more pillowing because the material ability to undergo
uniform deformation in response to the applied stress
increases (or strain localization around the local defor-
mation zone decreases). This role of hardening expo-
nent on pillowing tendency of material is in agreement
with its role on stretch-ability of the material reported
in Hosford and Caddell.26 From here, it follows that
there might be a similarity between the pillowing and
stretching mechanisms. Furthermore, in view of role of
exponent on pillowing and that of area reduction on
the formability in SPIF, the sheet deformation under-
neath the tool and away from the tool/sheet contact
zone seems to be governed by different mechanisms.
Further discussion on this point requires extensive
experimental and FEAs which will be performed in
future.
Summarizing the discussion, as an alternative to the
strategy proposed in Malhotra et al.18 (i.e. to employ
6 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture

Figure 5. Effect of variation in the hardening exponent on (a) strain distribution and (b) von Mises stresses.

large-size tool), pillowing in SPIF can be reduced (or
controlled) by decreasing the hardening exponent of
material. This task can easily be accomplished through
cold rolling process. Furthermore, doing so will not sig-
nificantly affect the material formability because it
mainly depends on the percent reduction in area at ten-
sile fracture rather than on the hardening exponent.6
For example, according to Hussain et al.,6 80% reduc-
tion in the hardening exponent (0.2 to 0.04) of AA1060
aluminum sheet (1 mm thick) causes only 4% reduction
(82° to 79.5°) in its formability which compared to a
large decrease (i.e. 50%) in the pillow height is minimal
(i.e. 1.2 to 0.6 mm as given in Table 1). This is worth
noting that cold working is known as a method of
enhancing fatigue strength of materials. This means
that using a cold worked material, one can simultane-
ously overcome the pillow defect as well as can improve
fatigue strength of components without considerably
sacrificing the formability, which contrary to classical
processes can be considered as an additional promising
aspect of the SPIF mechanics.
Progression of pillow with forming depth
Figure 6 exhibits the progression of pillow defect with
varying forming depth. As can be seen from
Figure 6(a), the height of pillow increases from 1.35 to
3.5 mm as the forming depth of 20° cone is increased
from 2 to 9 mm. However, further increment in the
depth after 9 mm (from 9 to 18 mm) contrarily leads to
reduction in the pillow height (from 3.5 to 1.62 mm).
In fact, as can be seen from the contours of von Mises
stresses given for 2, 9 and 18 mm forming depths
(Figure 6(b)), the stress level of sheet metal in the part’s
bottom rises with each incremental loop of forming
(compare stresses in the part’s bottom for various
depth values), which in turn causes the strain hardening
of sheet. It seems that the increase in the pillow height
with increase in the forming depth from 2 to 9 mm is
due to increase in sheet bulging because of the said rise
in stresses. The decrease in the pillow height with the
increase in forming depth, however, can be attributed
to the effect of high strain (or stress) hardening of sheet
material in the part’s bottom (i.e. the hardening expo-
nent decreases significantly), which in this case seems
to occur when the part has acquired 9 mm depth. The
sheet material after attaining a certain level of harden-
ing (i.e. after 9 mm forming depth) does not (or com-
paratively minor) further bulge out in the following
loops of forming. On the other hand, to produce the
required forming depth, the SPIF tool continues to
consume pillowed-sheet available in the bottom. As a

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Ghamdi and Hussain 7

Figure 6. (a) Progression of pillow with the increase in forming depth in 20° cone, (b) distribution of von Mises stresses with
varying forming depth and (c) progression of pillow with increasing forming depth in 55° cone.

result, the pillow height reduces with each succeeding
increment from 9 to 18 mm. Similar trend, like the one
in Figure 6(a), has been observed under varied process
conditions: for example, with wall angle of 55° as evi-
denced in Figure 6(c). This is to be noticed from Figure
6(a) and (b) that the pillow in both 20° and 55° cones
attains the maximum height corresponding to about 10
mm depth (i.e. same depth). This information may
prove helpful for the process and product designers.
As mentioned earlier, after the sheet has been formed
to a certain depth, the pillow due to strain hardening
begins to regress when forming is further carried out to
increase the part (or forming) depth. This observation
endorses the above finding that the pillowing tendency
of a material decreases as the hardening exponent
decreases; a clearer evidence of this observation can be
seen from Figure 6(c) where the said trend continues
over a relatively wide range of depth (i.e. from 10 to 45
mm). Ambrogio et al.15 have shown that the discre-
pancy between the actual and experimental profiles var-
ies as the depth of a part varies. The results presented in
Figure 6 indicate that this is because of the variation in
the stress level and pillow height.
Observations on the effect of tool diameter
on pillowing
According to earlier investigations,23 tool diameter is
the most influential operating parameter on pillowing
in SPIF. Furthermore, the pillowing can be reduced by
increasing the tool size. In order to know the reason of
this finding, SPIF of 55° cone with 3-mm-thick sheet
was simulated for the two levels of tool diameter (i.e. 8
and 20 mm), and the stress components in the sheet
plane (sx, sy) and normal to it (sz) were analyzed. It
was found that the nature of sz in zone B (pillow

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8 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture
Figure 7. Distribution and nature of stress at varying tool diameter: (a) d = 3.5to and (b) d = 4.5to.
center) altered from tensile to compressive, as evi-
denced in Figure 7, as the tool diameter was increased
from 8 to 20 mm. As a result, a corresponding decrease
in the pillow height (from 1.1 to 0.6 mm) was observed
when measured from the software. These results point
out that a large-size tool (say 20 mm) regresses pillow-
ing because it, owing to comparatively higher contact
area with sheet than a small tool (say 8 mm), imposes
compressive stresses in a direction normal to the sheet
plane: more information on the role of tool size on pil-
lowing has been detailed in the previous study.23
According to the previous23 and current studies,
there are two options to control pillowing: by increas-
ing the tool diameter and by lowering the hardening
exponent through cold working of material. The stress–
tool size relation discussed above and presented in
Figure 7 indicates that a change in the shape of tool-
end from spherical to flat could serve as a third option.
Because a flat-end tool being entirely in contact with
the sheet comparative to spherical-end tool may impose
more compressive stresses (i.e. sz) than a spherical-end
tool does. Ziran et al.27 have performed a small piece
of work in this direction to show that flat-end tool
diminishes pillowing, comparative to spherical-end
tool, in SPIF. However, the work was limited to a nar-
row U-channel shape and also no scientific mechanism
was provided. Hence, further FEA-based investigations
are required to thoroughly investigate this theme.
Downloaded from pib.sagepub.com at Doðu Akdeniz Üniversitesi on April 30, 2014
Conclusion
This study was undertaken with a primary objective to
overcome pillowing in SPIF by controlling the proper-
ties of material. To fulfill this purpose, the most influ-
ential property was identified by plotting pillow height
with various properties of 11 materials. The relation-
ship between the forming depth and pillow size was
also investigated as a secondary objective. Besides these
two objectives, some observations to know the cause of
a previous finding (i.e. pillow size decreases as the tool
diameter increases) were made as well. In addition to
doing tests, the FEAs were also performed in an
attempt to know the reasons of empirical results. The
important findings of the study are summarized as
follows:
1. The mechanical property that controls the spif-
ability of a material (i.e. reduction in area at tensile
fracture) does not have any significant effect on its
pillowing tendency in SPIF. The hardening expo-
nent (i.e. stretch-ability indicator) on the other
hand shows controlling influence on pillowing and
establishes a consistent relationship with the pillow
height. Therefore, the hardening exponent can be
used as a pillowing indicator of materials in the
SPIF process.
2. The analyses of stress and strain distributions on
the pillow site of parts show that the development
Ghamdi and Hussain
of a pillow is an outgrowth of deformation stresses
of SPIF tool. This points out that although the
deformation imposed by the SPIF tool is local, its
after-facts are not localized.
3. The height of pillow decreases as the hardening
exponent of a material decreases. This, as found
from the FEA, is because of the fact that the strain
localization around the deformation zone (i.e. tool/
sheet contact vicinity) correspondingly increases.
Therefore, pillowing in SPIF can be controlled by
lowering the hardening exponent of material which
can be done through cold working.
4. The relationship between the pillow height and the
hardening exponent is defined by a linear formula.
One by knowing only one property can use this
formula to rank the materials with respect to the
pillowing behavior and hence can select an appro-
priate material (or condition) to produce pillow-
controlled components.
5. As the forming depth increases, the stress level in
the sheet material in the part’s bottom increases
which consequently promotes pillowing. However,
this trend continues till a certain depth (say 9 mm
for the present case) of part where the pillow
achieves the maximum height. Henceforth, strain
hardening of sheet occurs and the pillow begins to
regress in the following loops of forming.
6. The FEA conducted to know the effect of tool dia-
meter on pillowing (future work of Hussain23) has
revealed that the pillowing decreases with the
increase in tool diameter because the nature of
normal stress (i.e. stress normal to sheet plane) cor-
respondingly shifts from tensile to compressive.
Future work
The benefits of using flat-end tool to reduce pillowing
in SPIF and the related mechanisms will be witnessed
by conducting detailed investigations.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge with thanks the help pro-
vided by King Abdulaziz University for this research.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Funding
This research was supported by King Abdulaziz
University.
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