Single-Point Incremental Forming of 2024-T3 Aluminum Alloy Sheets

摘要

Many aluminum alloy sheet metal parts with complex geometry in airplane are often formed by drop hammer forming with intermediate annealing and then heat treated into T temper. The manufacturing cost is very high because of a number of forming and heat treatment steps. Incremental sheet forming can form complex parts because of larger forming limit than conventional stamping. So the research that the part is formed directly from T temper aluminum alloy sheet using incremental sheet forming is very attractive. 2024-T3 is the aluminum alloy used mostly in aerospace manufacturing. Single-point incremental forming experiments with 2024-T3 are carried to form cone shape parts. In this work, the formability of 2024-T3 aluminum alloy sheets in single-point incremental forming was preliminarily studied. Effect of tool diameter and wall angle on the formability were investigated. It is found that the surface roughness can be reduced and the forming depth of the cone shape part can be increased by increasing the tool diameter.