New rosette tools for developing rotational vibration-assisted incremental sheet forming

A major limitation of the incremental sheet forming (ISF) is its difficulties to manufacture hard-to-form materials. The existing ISF process variants require additional systems or devices, which compromises the process flexibility and simplicity, the unique advantages of the ISF. In this study, a novel type of rosette tools is proposed for developing a new ISF process to improve material formability, named as Rotational Vibration-assisted ISF (RV-ISF). A hard-to-form material, magnesium alloy AZ31B, has been successfully formed in the RV-ISF experiment by creating low-frequency and low-amplitude vibrations, and elevated temperatures at the local forming zone in the range of 250–450 °C. By developing the new RV-ISF, it has achieved a 60% increase in fracture depth than that by friction-stir ISF and more than 46% reduction in forming force than that by the conventional ISF. Experimental evaluation and analytical prediction of temperature increase, forming force and flow-stress reduction have concluded that the combined thermal effect and vibration softening is the key mechanism leading to the significant formability enhancement. The results show that both the rosette tool design and tool rotational speed are critical factors determining heat generation and transfer as well as vibration frequency and amplitude. Investigation on microstructural evolution has revealed that the low-frequency and low-amplitude vibrations created by the rosette tool have activated dislocations and dynamic recrystallization, and produced refined grains and increased micro hardness. The new RV-ISF developed has potentials to manufacture other hard-to-form materials and complex geometries of sheet products, overcoming the formability limitation of the current ISF technology.