Investigation of incremental formability of aluminum alloys

Sheet metal forming industries which have a large product and consumption volume use conventional sheet metal forming techniques due to low production cost per unit. However, in order to afford increasing economical demands and demands which has few differences in more economical way, incremental sheet forming stand out in recent years in the sheet metal industry. In this study, incremental sheet forming relationship with the aluminum alloys has been investigated. AA 2024 aluminum sheets as the material are preferred. These sheets which are 1 mm thickness are used in two different ways in the incremental forming method: supply form market and heat-treated form. Selected fixed parameters in the incremental forming method are 500 cycle/min as the cycle, 10 mm as the set diameter, 1000mm/min as the horizontal progression. Variable parameters in the incremental forming method are set paths, vertical progressions and lubrications types. All these parameters are applied to T3 temper form which is the default state and heat-treated form and, optimum parameter values are obtained. Then, for each parameter, four experiments are carried out. The aim of selecting the samples in fabrication and heat-treated state for experiments is to analyze the incremental forming ability of aluminum sheets which have different hardness values. Taking into account literature review, the set diameter and the horizontal progress are set to 10mm and 1000mm/min, respectively to define the optimum parameters of the incremental forming experiment. The values, 0.2 mm/cycle and 0.5 mm/cycle, are selected to analyze the effects of the vertical progress parameter in the incremental forming. Another parameter which is the set path is selected in two different ways. Finally, to investigate the effect of the lubrication factor to the incremental forming method, boron oil which is the cooling liquid for CNC milling machine and machine oil are used. As a result of those studies, taking into consideration 3D lazer scanning datas, the first set path, 0.5 mm vertical progress, machine oil parameters and heat-treated samples are more suitable than the other parameters in the incremental forming method was observed.