AFRC-CATP-1765 Assessment of the market potential to support a hybrid / flexible process approach to low cost alternative sheet forming

Following the successful demonstration to warm hydroform of Ti50A as part of core 2016–17 and the review of the scalability of warm hydroforming in core 2017-18, the AFRC have identified there is a clear requirement from industry to find alternative methods of extremely stiff sheet material components. Having a more efficient, cost effective, lower tooling costs alternative process to form such materials will provide customers with a alternative method of manufacture that can be used for a number of parts that would have continued to follow the typical manufacturing routes.
Last year a market assessment project was performed to identify what the market potential is for alternative sheet forming processes such as warm hydroforming and hot metal gas forming (HMGF) as compared to the current approach to use superplastic forming technology and identifying what the current barriers are to the uptake and development of such enabling process technologies. Whilst performing this project, the team decided to take the strategy to determine an organisation’s challenges in sheet forming and their associated sector. The team contacted over 100 companies in the Aerospace and Automotive sectors. Some good feedback was provided by some organisations, however the main challenge was to get organisations to engage and reply. Of the 100 companies contacted there has been 14 replies. The feedback from organisations who did reply was clear. Organisations are looking for new ways to exploit their existing assets, or perform upgrades to existing assets to support a flexible approach to sheet forming.

The AFRC’s proposed approach to this project is described below in a series of individual work packages.