Contributing to lightweight design in the field of metal forming, four different strategies are introduced -the material, component, functional, and conditional lightweight strategy. Their main objective is the reduction of a component's weight and the saving of our available resources. Regarding each approach, innovative forming technologies are presented and their contribution to lightweight success is depicted. On the one hand, this article covers conventional processes like e.g. extrusion, which are used for processing hybrid lightweight materials. On the other hand, new forming technologies are introduced to serve lightweight requirements like e.g. load adaption. Finally, the importance of numerical damage modeling regarding lightweight design is shown.
The Incremental Profile Forming process (IPF) is a new method to manufacture tubes and profiles with variable cross-section design along the centre-line of the profile. The innovative process design enables the combination of high workpiece complexity and high process flexibility. For this reason, a machine concept was developed and finally a prototype realized. The new machine consists of eight numerically controlled axes, which allow the processing of thinwalled tubes and profiles with a maximum diameter of 80 mm. The design of the machine combined with the control system leads to a forming technology with a high degree of flexibility, which is an advantage of the process. Depending on the final workpiece shape the forming process proceeds in several steps and can therefore be considered as an incremental forming process. Furthermore, the tool concept supports both a kinematical and a form-closed forming process.
Increasing demands in profile manufacturing leads to a constant increase of the geometric complexity of the profile. Nowadays, lightweight design and load adaption are of huge importance and a need for new profile manufacturing technologies exists. In order to cope with this development, a new tube profile forming method was invented, the incremental profile forming (IPF). IPF allows the flexible manufacturing of profiles with varying cross section geometries along the longitudinal profile axis and offers therefore a high potential for the manufacturing of lightweight design parts. Due to the high degree of innovation, research work regarding the process fundamentals as well as the process limits is necessary. For this reason, the results of the first basic experimental and numerical investigations are presented. While in the experiments, the potential of the process is shown in feasibility studies, first analyses of the forming process, and the influence of different process parameters on the process were carried out in numerical investigations. In particular, it turned out that the tool infeed and tube dimensions have significant influence on the forming force, whereas the tool radius has a minor influence.
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