Towards the first generation micro bulk forming system

Micro-scaled progressive forming of bulk micropart via directly using sheet metals

“…Two alternative approach es have been proposed to substitute the micromachining process. The first one is to cut microbillet from metal wire by simple shearing [15], while the second approach is to form the micropart directly using sheet metal [16]. However, it is difficult to control the quality of the fracture surfaces in the first approach.…”

Ductile fracture and deformation behavior in progressive microforming

“…To realize the batch production of microparts using microforming, the difficulty in handling, transporting, stripping and positioning of billet, preform, semi-finished or final part must be overcome [12,13]. One way of handling and positioning microparts is using robot and advanced gripper system, which is proven to be complicated, tailor-made, less efficient and costly [14]. To address the handling, transportation and ejection issues in microforming, Hirota [15] put forward a new method to fabricate micro billet via extruding the sheet metal in thickness direction, and studied the effect of constraint condition on the height of the extruded billet.…”

Microforming Processes

“…Currently, there are two alternative approaches proposed to substitute micromachining process. One is to prepare microbillets via simple shearing of metal wire [31], and the other is to form microparts by directly using sheet metal [106]. For the first one, it is difficult to control the quality of the fracture surfaces of the billet.…”