Investigation of tool parameters effects on the formability of Al-1100 in incremental sheet metal hammering process

New trends have been observed in recent years for rapid prototyping of sheet metal parts by Incremental Forming process particularly at low quantity production. Recent ideas have been presented for a new type of this process known as Incremental sheet metal hammering (ISMH) method. In ISMH process, by sequence moving of a hammering punch over a clamped sheet metal, a three-dimensional work piece is produced without using a die. In this paper, the effect of tool parameter on the formability of Al-1100 will be studied. To investigate this issue, the sheet is clamped. Then by considering the cone angle, hammering is applied at a certain diameter and frequency until the failure happens. By recording the angle and the height values at failure point, a correlation has been extracted between the diameter and the frequency. Analysis of the results shows that by decreasing the diameter of the punch, maximum strain in the direction of thickness is observed at higher height. Also, by increasing the diameter of the punch, formability of Al-1100 increases. Also, it is shown that by increasing the impact frequency, the formability of the sheet will be decreased.