Peculiarities of the robotised incremental metal and polymer sheets forming

The objective of this research is to study the formability of thermoplastics using heat assisted single point incremental forming and to test the effectiveness of metal forming using ultrasonic sheet excitation. Both of these technological processes are realized by a single point incremental forming tool embedded in the robot’s hand. A testing set-up has been developed and experiments have been conducted to study the impact of external heating on the polymer forming limits and to evaluate the reduction of friction between the tool and the sheet of metal when the latter is excited by two – way ultrasonic vibrations. This method has a potential to be an economical method for low volume manufacturing of thermoplastic polymer or metal sheet.