Modelling the electroforming process: significance and challenges

Electrochemical forming (or electroforming), is gaining recognition as an additive and sustainable manufacturing process. Electroforming could shape part of the fourth industrial revolution through thoughtful and systematic modelling. For this to be useful, efficient simulation of the electroforming process in the 4.0 era should be used as a tool to design, test and propose optimised processes. Emphasis should be put on building models that provide new information about the electrochemical systems under investigation or lay the groundwork for innovative applications and provide the industry with options to update obsolete process models currently in use. This will lead to a decrease in process waste, lower inventory needs, perhaps meet environmental regulations and optimise supply chains. In this review article, key studies on modelling electroforming processes are critically reviewed against this framework. The authors suggest some useful modelling approaches using commercial software.