Modeling of Optimization Strategies in the Incremental CNC Sheet Metal Forming Process

M. Bambach, G. Hirt, J. Ames

Institute of Materials Technology/Precision Forming (LWP), Saarland University, Germany
Abstract. Incremental CNC sheet forming (ISF) is a relatively new sheet metal forming process for small batch production and prototyping. In ISF, a blank is shaped by the CNC movements of a simple tool in combination with a simplied die. The standard forming strategies in ISF entail two major drawbacks: (i) the inherent forming kinematics set limits on the maximum wall angle that can be formed with ISF. (ii) since elastic parts of the imposed deformation can currently not be accounted for in CNC code generation, the standard strategies can lead to undesired deviations between the target and the sample geometry. Several enhancements have recently been put forward to overcome the above limitations, among them a multistage forming strategy to manufacture steep anges, and a correction algorithm to improve the geometric accuracy. Both strategies have been successful in improving the forming of simple parts. However, the high experimental effort to empirically optimize the tool paths motivates the use of process modeling techniques. This paper deals with nite element modeling of the ISF process. In particular, the outcome of different multistage strategies is modeled and compared to collated experimental results regarding aspects such as sheet thickness and the onset of wrinkling. Moreover, the feasibility of modeling the geometry of a part is investigated as this is of major importance with respect to optimizing the geometric accuracy. Experimental validation is achieved by optical deformation measurement that gives the local displacements and strains of the sheet during forming as benchmark quantities for the simulation.

INTRODUCTION
The incremental CNC sheet forming process as described in [1-5] has been developed to meet the demands of small batch sheet metal forming and rapid prototyping. Recent experimental work has revealed the need for nonconventional forming strategies to overcome current limitations, i.e. strategies that help optimize the tool path to (i) produce steep anges and (ii) reduce deviations from the target geometry [6]. Currently, these strategies are based on trial-and-error optimization of the tool path. The experimental effort inherent in empirical tool path optimization could in principle be reduced by process modeling. The present paper provides rst results of the FE modeling of nonconventional ISF strategies.

the tool traces along a sequence of contour lines with a vertical feed in between. Generally, a distinction is made between "single point forming", where the bottom contour of the part is supported by a rig and "two-point forming", where full or partial positive dies support critical surface areas of the part (Figure 1).
blank tool partial die

blank holder

post

single point ISF

two-point ISF

FIGURE 1.

Process variants in ISF

Process limit: sheet thinning PROCESS TECHNOLOGY Process description

In ISF, a metal blank which is clamped into a rectangular blank holder is shaped by the continuous movement of a simple ball-headed forming tool. The tool path is prescribed by NC data that is generated from a CAD model of the component to be formed. The conventional forming strategy consists of a single forming stage where In conventional ISF, sheet thinning depends strongly on the wall angle. Presuming volume constancy and a deformation mode close to plane strain conditions, the socalled sine law relates the initial (t0 ) and actual (t1 ) sheet thickness for a given wall angle . At wall angles of approximately 60 for Al99.5 and mild steel, a localization of the plastic deformation can be observed [6]. Accordingly, wall

CP712, Materials Processing and Design: Modeling, Simulation and Applications, NUMIFORM 2004, edited by S. Ghosh, J. C. Castro, and J. K. Lee 2004 American Institute of Physics 0-7354-0188-8/04/$22.00

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t1

t0 sin 90

(1)

angles of about 60-65 can be considered the maximum for conventional ISF with sheets of 11.5 mm thickness. This limitation on the maximum wall angle restricts the potential scope of shapes and applications.

before forming blank holder

during forming stage down

Process limit: geometric accuracy

A second process limit stems from the elastic portion of the deformation. The tool path is generated exclusively according to geometric information specied by the CAD model of the desired part. Since the elastic portion of the deformation (including backstresses induced by the cyclic loading history) are neglected, experimental work shows undesired deviations from the target geometry (see Figure 2).
mild steel (t0=0.8mm)
deviation [mm]
>3.00 2.25 3.00 1.50 2.25 0.75 1.50 0.00 0.75 -0.75 0.00 -1.50 -0.75 -2.25 -1.50 -3.00 -2.25 < -3.00

stainless steel (t0=1.0mm)

FIGURE 2. Deviations from the target geometry for a demonstator part

OPTIMIZATON STRATEGIES Multistage forming

Inspired by the ideas for multistage forming strategies for axisymmetric components [9], a modied multistage forming strategy (Figure 3) has been developed for nonaxisymmetric parts. The multistage strategy can be described as follows:

In the rst "preforming stage" (Figure 3a) a preform with a shallow wall angle (45 in this example) is produced by using the conventional twopoint forming. Then, a number of stages follow in which the pitch motion of the forming tool alternates from upward (Figure 3b) to downward (Figure 3c). From one stage to the next the tool path is generally designed with an increase in angle of 3 or 5 . This means that 7 to 12 stages are needed to produce components with an angle of about 80 .

The described forming strategy introduces a number of new process variables such as the shape of the preform,

tool a preforming stage

partial die

up

b upward stage

fixture down

c downward stage

FIGURE 3.

Multistage forming strategy

and the shape and number of intermediate stages. The number of intermediate stages should be as low as possible to avoid the occurrence of surface wear [7] and to reduce the process time. It should be noted that reducing the number of intermediate shapes increases the risk of sheet rupture and wrinkling (Figure 4).

(1) wrinkling

1 2

3
(2) rupture

(3) wear

FIGURE 4.

Multistage forming strategy

Correction algorithm
Reducing geometric deviations can be considered an optimization problem of nding a tool path that yields the desired part with a specied geometric tolerance. Due to the fact that the ISF process is very reproducible, a general correction algorithm has been developed (Figure 5). First, a part is produced based on the uncorrected tool path. Then, "deviation vectors" pointing from a set of target points to the corresponding points on the actual geometry are determined using a coordinate measuring

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cdi
corrected point

part

FIGURE 5.

correction algorithm

deviation [mm]
>2.5 2.5 2.0 2.0 1.5 1.5 2.0 1.0 1.5 0.5 1.0 0.0 0.5 -0.5 -1.0 -1.0 -1.5 -1.5 -2.0 -2.0 -2.5 <-2.5

uncorrected component

corrected component (c=0.7)

FIGURE 7.

FIGURE 6. Comparison between uncorrected and corrected part geometry

The different variants can be described as follows: 1. In variant 1, a constant corner radius of 15 mm is used throughout all forming stages. 2. For variant 2, a variable corner radius is used. The preform has a bottom radius of 60 mm which decreases continously to a top radius of 15 mm. The corner radii are gradually reduced to yield a constant edge radius of 15 mm (from top to bottom) after the nal stage. For both variants, the wall angle on the at side walls is increased by 3 per stage (yielding 12 stages after the preform). Under the described conditions, both variants should produce the same nal shape, using different shapes for the preform and the intermediate stages.

PROCESS MODELING
In earlier work ([8],[9]), a modeling framework in ABAQUS/Explicit has been successfully used to model aspects in conventional ISF, e.g. sheet thinning, stress and strain elds under the action of the tool as well as damage evolution during forming. The present paper focuses on nite element modeling of the following aspects of nonconventional ISF strategies:

For multistage forming it is important to nd a combination of process parameters that avoids the limitations shown in Figure 4. Here, we will restrict ourselves to the prediction of wrinkling and compare two different variants to produce the same component by multistage ISF. Since the correction algorithm presented above acts as a proportional controller, convergence and thus

Modeling of ISF is computationally very intensive, mainly due to the fact that the ISF process has a time range of minutes or hours in reality. Since the tool path

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machine. These vectors are inverted and scaled by a corretion factor c, yielding a new trial tool path to produce a further part. The correction module can be considered a proportional controller. It can be applied repeatedly until a specied tolerance is met. Figure 6 shows the reduced deviations after applying the correction algorithm once.

target contour

di

actual contour

ci

actual contour

ti a i

actual position target point target contour corrected contour

the experimental effort involved depend crucially on the correction factor c. In order to reduce the experimental effort by simulation, the nite element modeling must predict the part geometry as accurately as possible, i.e. at least as good as the desired geometric tolerance. This will be investigated later in this paper by comparing modeling results to related optical deformation measurement.

Finite elemet modeling of multistage forming

Problem denition We consider two different variants of multistage ISF for the forming of a foursided pyramid with a ange angle of 81 (Figure 7).
preforming stages (=45 )

variant 1

variant 2

final shape =81

Multistage forming of variants 1 and 2

Finite element model

consists of a large number of points (104 106 ) even for demonstrator components, the FE model has to deal with a huge number of contact situations. In the case of multistage forming, the process duration is further increased. With 12 stages in the example to be presented, the process time is increased by a factor 12 with respect to the conventional process. Consequently, in order to reduce model complexity and calculation time, only a quarter of the pyramid is considered (Figure 8), with symmetry boundary conditions applied to the cutting edges. Considering a quarter pyramid introduces disturbances in the stress and strain elds as compared to a full pyramid, but test calculations have shown that these deviations are small and restricted to the immediate vicinity of the cutting edges, i.e. far away from the region where wrinkling occurs.
tool symmetry b.c. in 2-direction partial die symmetry b.c. in 1-direction sheet

thickness [mm] 2.2 1.9 1.6 1.3 1.0 0.7 0.4

Two factors are crucial for wrinkling:

3 1 2

FIGURE 8.

FE model for multistage forming of a pyramid

The partial die used for the experiments has a length of 72 mm, a width of 52 mm and a 9 mm edge radius, yielding a quarter die with edge lengths of 36 mm and of 26 mm, respectively, for the simulation. The sheet has a size of 130x140 mm and is meshed with 2912 shell elements. In the experiments, 1.5 mm A1050-H14 aluminum sheets have been used. Since previous results have shown that anisotropy has a negligible effect on the outcome of the forming operation [9], isotropic J2 plasticity with isotropic hardening has been used. Results and discussion The outcome of the simulation of the different multistage ISF variants is given in Figure 9 (both parts are shown from the inside). For variant 1, the simulation predicts excessive wrinkling in the corner region of the pyramid at stage 9 of 12 stages. This corresponds well to experimental results (Figure 10). On the contary, the simulation predicts that variant 2 enables forming without wrinkling. This is also found in the corresponding experiment, where a pyramid with a nal wall angle of 81 has been successfully formed (Figure 10).

Modeling the part geometry

Due to the presence of elastic waves, the explicit FE method is generally considered illsuited to predict the shape of the sheet after springback (i.e. the geometric accuracy). The implicit method, on the contrary, is well suited for springback analyzes, but a small time step has to be chosen in order to deal with the huge number of contact situations in simulations of the ISF process. This leads at present to an unacceptable computational effort.

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tool path

In order to allow for steep anges to be formed, the perimeter of the part at an arbitrary zlevel 0 z 60mm is gradually reduced, and additional material from the preform is included into the forming of the part. The reduction of the perimeter causes compressive stresses in circumferential direction that can entail wrinkling. At a xed stage, the considered variants differ in the shape of the corner region. The constant corner radius of variant 1 leads to a smaller inclination of the side wall compared to the inclination of variant 2 for the preform. Thus, for all stages, the sheet volume included in the forming of the corner region is bigger for variant 1, yielding a larger sheet thickness and thus stiffness than variant 2. Since the at side walls have the same wall angle for both variants and consequently the same sheet thickness, variant 1 shows a steeper increase in stiffness at the junction between side wall and corner region and is thus more susceptible to wrinkling.

wrinkling

no wrinkling

variant 1

variant 2

FIGURE 9.

FE modeling of forming variants 1 and 2

wrinkling wrinkling successful strategy

FIGURE 10.

Pyramid with a wall angle of 81

In the following, a benchmark example is considered to investigate the feasibility of our explicit FE model for springback analysis: We consider singlepoint forming of a foursided pyramid made of 1.5 mm aluminum sheet A1050-H14. The pyramid has a square bottom contour of 200 200 mm with a 15 mm radius at the corners, a side wall angle of 50 and a height of 60 mm. The corresponding nite element model is given in Figure 11.
tool vertical pitch/ break point sheet rig

mesh region corresponding to the area observed by deformation measurement

100

mm
observed area

100

mm

20 0m

20

mm

FIGURE 11. FE model for comparison with optical deformation measurement

During forming, the part geometry is analyzed by means of an optical deformation measurement system consisting of two calibrated CCD cameras. The cameras record the deformation on the underside of the sheet. Since bulging occurs primarily on the unsupported side walls of the pyramid, a square of 100 mm edge length that completely contains one side wall has been observed by deformation measurement. In order to reduce the number of cycles to be recorded, a tool path with a relatively coarse vertical pitch of 1 mm has been chosen. The Gcode le for the CNC control is designed in such a way that the machine is halted after each cycle of the tool just before the vertical feed motion is carried out so that the deformation after each cycle can be evaluated. In order to synchronize the FE simulation with the experiment, the tool path information specied in the Gcode le has been translated into input data for ABAQUS/Explicit. By maintaining the break points set in the experiments, we generate eld outputs of the calculated displacements and strains for exactly the same time points as in the experiment. The nite element mesh is depicted in Figure 12 for a forming depth of 50 mm. The mesh consists of 6,400 shell elements with 5 integration points over the sheet thickness. The mesh region that corresponds to the area observed with optical deformation measurement is highlighted. The results given next compare the FE model with experimental data along the depicted centered section, where the maximum amount of bulging occurs. The comparison between the results obtained by simulation and deformation measurement is shown in Figure 13 for six stages from 10 mm to 60 mm forming depth.

centered section for the comparison with deformation measurement

FIGURE 12. FE model for comparison with optical deformation measurement

In almost all cases, side wall bulging is underestimated in the nite element simulation. For the nal stage (z = -60 mm), a maximum deviation of 4 mm between deformation analysis and simulation has been found.
0 10 20 30 0 0 20 40 0 0 20 40 60 0 20 y 40 60 simulation experiment 20 40 z = 30 mm 60 z = 10 mm 0 10 20 30 0 0 20 40 0 0 20 40 60 0 20 y 40 60 20 40 z = 40 mm 60 z = 20 mm

20

40 z = 50 mm

60

20

40 z = 60 mm

60

FIGURE 13. Comparison between the geometry predicted by FEM and related deformation measurement

Since the mist to the experimental results is partially due to the the presence of elastic waves, the analysis has been restarted and a viscous pressure load has been applied to the surface of the shell elements to damp out transient wave effects. Quasistatic equilibrium can be reached quickly by calculating one additional second of process time, which is a negligible effort compared to the 300 seconds of process time that have been taken for the simulation of whole process. Figure 14 compares the geometry of the part along the centered section for the nal stage (z=-60mm). With damping the mist has been reduced to a maximum deviation of 1.5 mm. While this can be considered a good conformance, it is still a considerable mist as measured by the demands of the correction module. It is worth mentioning that the inuence of the discretization and shell element formulation has been carefully checked in a series of test calculations.

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0 -10 -20 -30 -40 -50 -60 0 experiment simulation as is simulation with viscous pressure load 10 20 30 y 40 50 60

for the multistage forming of a pyramid shape have been compared. The occurrence of wrinkling in one of the variants has been modeled successfully. Furthermore, the evolution of the geometry of a part during forming has been tracked using optical deformation measurement. The related nite element calculation with an explicit code could describe side wall bulging fairly well after the elastic waves have been damped out using a viscous pressure load. However, the remaining maximum deviation of 1.5 mm between model and experiment is still too large to allow for an optimization of the part geometry. Future work will focus on the role of the elasic modulus and the buildup of internal stresses in order to improve the prediction of the part geometry.

FIGURE 14. Comparison between the geometry predicted by FEM and related deformation measurement

Reasons for the remaining deviations can be:

In this paper nite element calculations for non conventional forming strategies in incremental sheet forming have been presented. The enclosed non conventional forming strategies aim at optimizing the tool path to enable the production of steep anges and to reduce geometric deviations. Since these strategies are at present based on trialanderror optimization, nite element calculations could in principle help reduce the experimental effort. In particular, two different variants

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the framework of SPP 1146: Modeling of incremental forming operations.

The strong dependence of the results on the elastic modulus. Since we assume isotropic elastic behaviour and since the elastic modulus of the undeformed sheet can only be determined with limited accuracy, this could have a considerable inuence on the result. Furthermore, we do not account for the decrease of the elastic modulus due to damage evolution in the sheet. Since decreasing the elastic modulus increases the elastic part of the deformation, accounting for this effect could improve the prediction of geometric accuracy. The constitutive framework used in this work does not account for kinematic hardening and the build up of backstresses. Accounting for kinematic hardening should provide a better prediction of springback than the isotropic hardening law used here. The blank holder is at present modeled by constraining the corresponding translational and rotational degrees of freedom along the edges of the sheet. A realistic modeling of the clamping conditions could further improve the results.

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SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK

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