Deformation machining (DM) provides combined advantages of machining and Incremental sheet forming (ISF) processes to shape a monolithic component on a single setup to provide a high degree of flexibility. The authors propose DM as a rapid manufacturing solution, as an alternative to conventional methods for the fabrication of customized products at the development stage. The work presents the experimental results of the capabilities of the DM (bending mode) to produce impeller blade-like structures. To simulate the conditions for the blades of an impeller, a block of aluminum alloy AA6061-T6 is machined to create thin-walled preforms for blades, which are fixed at the base (at the bottom) and the core (at the side). Later, these preforms are shaped into the final configuration using ISF operation. This paper discusses the tool path development and forming strategies. The feature extraction approach is used to develop tool paths for impeller blade-like structures with varying blade angles. The forming forces, geometric accuracy, and surface roughness are the response parameters considered for the assessment of the formed blades. The results obtained show that the resultant forces increase with the blade angle. The forming methodology and tool path strategies are responsible for the geometric accuracy of the desired product. Also, the higher stiffness of the blades of 2 mm thickness shows higher springback, thus, the angular deviations are higher in comparison with the blades of 1 mm thickness. This research provides an idea of the formability of the material in the case of the bending mode of DM to bend the thin blade structures with fixed-fixed-free-free boundary conditions to produce monolithic components having complex geometry.
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