Research Projects

Over the past few decades, customer demands drive the transformation from mass production to customized small to medium sized batch productions of sheet metal parts for which conventional forming tooling like die and punch are expensive and needs high manufacturing lead time. Therefore to ensure customization and flexibility in metal forming, additive manufactured tooling plays a vital role for economic and timely production of parts with desired quality to meet the industry requirements. This project proposal will attempt to develop a process chain for low cost rapid tooling like dies and punches made of both polymer and metallic materials using additive manufacturing processes for flexible sheet metal forming to fulfill the customized production of small to medium batch size and high variety sheet metal parts for applications in automotive, aerospace and other industries. In this research project proposal, investigations on the development of forming tools namely die and punch using additive manufacturing (AM) processes will be carried out through parametric study of AM processes, and formability study of sheet metals through finite element analysis in ABAQUS software, mechanical and metallurgical characterizations of the fabricated tools. First hemispherical punch of CF-nylon will be fabricated using fused deposition modeling (FDM) process with optimal process parameters followed by formability study of two sheets DP590 and Ti6Al4V using Nakazima test, digital image correlation, finite element analysis in ABAQUS, and characterizations of the deformed sheet metals. Attempt will be made to developed hemispherical punch of maraging tool steels using two metal additive manufacturing processes namely laser based directed energy deposition (DED), and hybrid wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) with CNC milling technique. The optimal development of metallic punches using metal additive manufacturing process will be performed through parametric investigations on mechanical properties through thermomechanical finite element simulations and metallurgical characterizations. A comparative study of the performances of hemispherical punches made by three different AM methods will be investigated considering forming parameters in terms of forming limit, dimensional accuracy, and surface quality. Next for given two target geometrical shapes for automotive and aerospace parts of reduced size at laboratory scale dies and punches having both convex and concave features will be manufactured using three different methods, i.e., FDM, laser-based DED and hybrid WAAM and CNC machining. The additive manufactured forming tools die and punches will be used for forming two sheet materials namely DP590 and Ti6Al4V having thickness values of 1.0 mm and 2.0 mm, respectively. The formability of the two sheet metals will be compared for three different types of forming tools in terms of fracture strains, dimensional accuracy, surface quality, manufacturing lead time and cost. The experimental investigations and analysis will provide information and understanding for suitable applications of additively manufactured forming tools for flexible sheet metal forming. Therefore execution of the research project will deliver a process chain for flexible sheet metal forming of medium lot sized sheet metal parts through additively manufactured rapid tooling like die and punch. The feasibility in forming sheet metal parts using additive manufactured die punch will be found in terms of forming tool life, cost and accuracy for desired applications. For industrial scale applications metal additive manufactured forming tools performances will provide guidelines in selecting appropriate process chain for sheet forming applications.