SHEET METAL FORMING

SHEET METAL FORMING

 Sheet metal forming, unlike bulk deformation processes
involves workpieces with a high ratio of surface area to
thickness.

 It involves lower forces than bulk forming.

 Sheet metal forming operations produce a wide range of

consumer and industrial products such as metal desks,
aircraft fuselages, beverage cans, car bodies etc.

 Sheet metal forming is also known as pressworking, press

forming or stamping.
SHEET METAL CHARACTERISTICS

 Forming of sheet metals is generally carried out by tensile

forces in the plane of the sheet.

 The mechanics of all sheet forming basically consists of

stretching and bending.

 Decrease in thickness in sheet forming processes can lead

to necking and failure.
PARAMETERS AFFECTING SHEET
METAL FORMING PROCESSES
Important parameters that affect the sheet-metal forming
processes are:

1. Yield-point elongation
2. Anisotropy
3. Grain size
4. Residual stresses
5. Wrinkling
PARAMETERS AFFECTING SHEET
METAL FORMING PROCESSES
Yield-point elongation:
 Low carbon steels exhibit this behavior
 This produces lueder’s bands (stretch strain marks)
 These marks can be eliminated by reducing thickness of sheet 0.5 % to 1.5 %
by cold rolling process
 The magnitude of the yield point elongation depends on strain rate (rate of
change of strain with respect to time) and the grain size of the sheet metal
(grain size decreases as yield point elongation increases.

Figure 1: (a) Yield-point elongation

in a sheet-metal specimen and (b)
Lueder’s bands in a low-carbon
steel sheet.
PARAMETERS AFFECTING SHEET
METAL FORMING PROCESSES

Anisotropy:
 It is the property of being directionally dependent
 Anisotropy is caused by thermo-mechanical processing of sheet.
 It may be present not only in the plane of the sheet but also in its thickness
direction.

Grain size:
 Grain size effects mechanical properties & surface appearance of the
material
 The coarser the grain the rougher the appearance and vice-versa
PARAMETERS AFFECTING SHEET
METAL FORMING PROCESSES
Residual stresses:
 Residual stresses develops in sheet metal parts because of non-uniform
deformation that the sheet undergoes during forming.
 Tensile residual stresses on the surfaces can lead to cracking.

Wrinkling:
 Wrinkling develops when compressive stresses are generated in the plane of
the sheet.
 Wrinkling in sheet metal increases with (a) decreasing thickness (b) non-
uniformity of the thickness of the sheet and (c) increasing length or
surface area of the sheet that is not supported.
SHEET METAL FORMING PROCESSES
1. Shearing
(Punching, Fine blanking, Slitting and Steel rules)
2. Bending
(Press-brake forming, Various bending operations, Beading,
Hemming and Roll forming)
3. Stretch forming
4. Bulging
5. Hydroforming
6. Spinning (Conventional, shear and tube spinning)
7. High-Energy Rate Forming
(Explosive forming, Electrohydraulic forming, Peen forming and
Thermal forming)
8. Deep Drawing
SHEARING
 Sheet metal subjected to shear stress developed between a
punch and a die is called shearing.

 Shearing usually starts with formation of cracks on both the top

and bottom edges of the work piece. These cracks meet each
other and separation occurs.

 Important variables in shearing process are punch force,

speed of the punch, punch and die materials, the corner radii
of the punch and die, the punch-die clearance and
lubrication.

Figure 2: Schematic
illustration of the shearing
process with punch and die.
SHEARING OPERATIONS

Punching: In punching, the

sheared slug is discarded as
shown in Figure 3.

Blanking: In blanking, the slug is

the part itself.

Figure 3: Punching and Blanking

SHEARING OPERATIONS
Fine blanking: Smooth and square edges can be produced by fine
blanking as it involves clearance of the order of 1 % of the sheet
thickness as compared with as much as 8 % clearance in ordinary
shearing operation.

Figure 4: Schematic illustration of a setup for fine blanking

SHEARING OPERATIONS

Slitting: Slitting is a shearing operation carried out with a pair of

circular blades, similar to those on a can opener (Figure 5). Straight
slitting is commonly used in cutting wide non-metals sheet.

Figure 5: Slitting with rotary blades

SHEARING OPERATIONS
Steel rules: Steel rule dies are used to blank the sheets of soft
materials like paper, thermoplastics, leather etc. Such a die
consists of a thin strip of hardened steel that is first bent to
the shape to be sheared (similar to the cookie cutter). The die
is pressed against the sheet and cuts it to the shape of the
steel rule.
TYPES OF SHEARING DIES
Simple dies: Single operation with a single stroke
Compound dies: Two operations on the same strip performed in one stroke at
one station.

Figure: Schematic illustrations of compound dies: (a) before and (b) after
blanking. note the separate movements of the die and the punch
SHEARING DIES
Progressive dies:
Parts produced with multiple operations such as, punching, blanking and
notching are made at high production rates in progressive dies.

It is a forming process that utilizes

a series of stamping stations to
perform simultaneous operations
on sheet metal.
As the metal strip is moved through
the drawing process, it is exposed
to a series of progressive die
stations, each one changing the
metal configuration compared to
the previous station. Therefore, the
metal workpiece is created in a
series of stamping stages.
BENDING
Bending is defined as the straining of the sheet metal around
a straight edge.

Figure 11: Bending

terminology

Bend allowance: It is the length of the neutral axis in the bend area. The
bend allowance Lb can be calculated by:

where α is the bend angle (in radians), R is the bend radius, k is constant
and t is the thickness.
BENDING
Springback: Almost all the materials have a finite modulus of elasticity,
E, therefore plastic deformation is always followed by elastic recovery
upon removal of the load. In bending this recovery is known as
springback. A quantity characterizing springback is the springback
factor Ks.

Figure : Terminology of
springback in bending
BENDING TECHNIQUES

V-bending

Air-bending
BENDING TECHNIQUES

Rotary bending
BENDING TECHNIQUES

Wipe bending
COMMON BENDING OPERATIONS
Various bending operations: Sheet metal may be bent by a variety of
processes as shown in Figure . Bending of sheet metal can be carried out
with two rolls or three rolls while various curvatures can be developed by
adjusting the distance between the rolls.

Figure : Schematic illustration of various bending operations

COMMON BENDING OPERATIONS
Press-brake forming: Sheet metal or plate can be bent with simple
fixtures using a press. Parts that are long (7m or more) and narrow are
usually bent in press brake. This machine usually uses mechanical or
hydraulic press. The tooling is simple and adaptable to a wide variety of
shapes as shown in Figure .

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e)

Figure : Schematic illustration of various bending operations in a

press brake
COMMON BENDING OPERATIONS
Beading: In this operation, the edge of the sheet is bent into the cavity of
a die as can be seen Figure.

Figure : (a) Bead forming with single die and (b) to (d) bead forming
with two dies in a press brake
COMMON BENDING OPERATIONS
Hemming: In the hemming process (also called flattening), the edge of
the sheet is folded or rolled over itself as shown in Figure. Hems are
commonly used to reinforce an edge, hide burrs and rough edges, and
improve appearance

Hemming process A closed hem

COMMON BENDING OPERATIONS

Roll forming: This process is used for bending continuous lengths of

sheet metal. The process is also called contour roll forming or cold roll
forming. In this process, the metal sheet is bent in different stages as it
passes through a series of rolls as can be seen in Figure.

Figure: (a) The roll forming operation showing different stages and (b)
examples of roll formed cross sections
STRETCH FORMING
In stretch forming operation, the sheet metal is clamped around its
edges and stretched over a die or form block which moves upward,
downwards or sideways depending on the particular machine as can be
seen in Figure. This process is mainly used to make aircraft wing skin
panels, automobile door panels and window frames.

Figure: Schematic illustration of stretch forming operation

BULGING
The basic process of bulging involves placing a tubular, conical, or
curvilinear hollow part in a split die and expanding it with a rubber plug as
shown in Figure. The punch is then retracted, the plug returns to its original
shape, and the part is removed by opening the split dies. Typical products
made from this process are water pitchers, barrels etc .

Figure: Schematic illustration of bulging operation

HYDROFORMING
In hydroforming or fluid forming process as illustrated in Figure, the
pressure applied over the flexible membrane or rubber diaphragm is
controlled throughout the forming cycle. This control procedure allows
proper flow of the sheet during the forming cycle to prevent wrinkling or
tearing.

Figure: Schematic illustration of hydroforming process

SPINNING
Spinning involves the forming of axisymmetric parts
over a rotation mandrel using rigid tools or rollers. There
are three major types of spinning which are:

1) Conventional spinning
2) Shear spinning
3) Tube spinning
CONVENTIONAL SPINNING
In conventional spinning, a circular blank of flat sheet metal is held
against a rotating mandrel while a rigid tool deforms and shapes it over the
mandrel as shown in Figure (a). Because operation requires multiple passes
to form final part it is economical for relatively small production runs only.
Typical shapes produced by the conventional spinning process is shown in
Figure (b).
To = TF

(a) (b)

Figure: (a) Schematic illustration of conventional spinning operation and

(b) typical shapes produced by conventional spinning process
SHEAR SPINNING
In shear spinning, also called power spinning or spin forging an
axisymmetric conical or curvilinear shape is generated in a manner
whereby the front diameter of the part remains constant while the roller is
used instead of a tool as shown in Figure. Rocket motor casting and missile
nose are typical parts that are made by shear spinning operation.

To ≠ TF

Figure: Schematic illustration of shear spinning operation

 TUBE SPINNING
In tube spinning, tubes or pipes are reduced in thickness by spinning
them on cylindrical mandrel using rollers. The operation may be carried
out externally or internally as illustrated in Figure (a) and (b). The process
can be combined with shear spinning to make pressure vessels, rocket,
missile etc

Figure: Schematic illustration of shear

spinning operation (a) external and (b)
internal operation
HIGH-ENERGY-RATE FORMING
Sheet metal forming processes which use chemical, electrical and
magnetic sources of energy are called high-energy-rate processes
because the energy is released in a very short period of time.

Types of high-energy-rate processes are:

1. Explosive forming
2. Electrohydrualic forming
3. Peen forming
4. Thermal forming
EXPLOSIVE FORMING
Clamping of the sheet over a die, the air in die cavity is evacuated and the
whole assembly is lowered in the tank filled with water. An explosive charge
is placed at a certain distance from the sheet surface and is detonated. The
rapid conversion of the explosive into gas generates shock wave, the
pressure of which is sufficiently high to force the metal into the die cavity.

Figure: Schematic illustration of explosive forming

ELECTRO-HYDRAULIC FORMING
In electrohydraulic forming, also called underwater spark or electric-
discharge forming, the source of energy in this process is a spark from
two electrodes connected with a wire as shown in Figure. The energy is
stored in the capacitor banks while the rapid discharge of this energy
through the electrodes generates a shock wave which is strong enough to
form the part. Similar to explosive forming except it uses lower energy and
smaller workpiece.

Figure: Schematic illustration of electro-hydraulic forming

THERMAL FORMING
In thermal forming process, the localized heating is used to
induce thermal-stress gradients through the thickness of the
sheet. The heat source is usually a laser or a plasma torch.
The stresses developed are sufficiently high to cause localized
plastic deformation of the sheet without the use of external forces.
Straightening, bending, embossing etc are typical applications of
thermal forming process.
PEEN FORMING
Shot peen forming is a dieless process performed at room
temperature, whereby small steel balls impact the surface of the work
piece. Every piece of shot acts as a tiny peening hammer, producing elastic
stretching of the upper surface and local plastic deformation that manifests
itself as a residual compressive stress. The combination of elastic
stretching and compressive stress generation causes the material to
develop a compound, convex curvature on the peened side.
Aircraft industry uses peen forming process to generate curvature on
aluminum aircraft-wing skins.

Figure : Schematic illustration of peen forming

DEEP DRAWING
Deep drawing (forming deep parts) is important sheet-metal forming
process. Typical parts produced by this method are beverage cans, pots,
pans, containers of all shapes, kitchen sinks etc
In this process, the sheet metal blank is formed into a cylindrical or box
shaped part by means of a punch that presses the blank into the die cavity
as shown in Figure.

Figure : Schematic illustration of deep drawing process

DEEP DRAWING
The significant variables in deep drawing are:

1. Properties of the sheet

2. Ratio of the blank diameter to the punch diameter
3. Sheet thickness
4. Clearance between the punch and the die
5. Corner radii of the punch and die
6. Blankholder force
7. Speed of the punch
8. Friction at the punch, die, and workpiece interface