A comparative study: incremental sheet forming of AA1050 by roller-ball tool and standard tool with its optimization

In this work, a single point incremental forming method was applied using both a roller-ball tool and a standard forming tool with oil application. Aluminium AA1050 sheet with 0.8-mm thickness was used as the experiment material. The experiments were applied according to Taguchi L18 experimental design. Surface roughness measurements and thickness distributions were evaluated in terms of tool type, amount of the stepdown and the wall angles. ANOVA and regression analysis were also performed to show the influence of the process parameters on the surface roughness measurements. According to results, roller-ball tool with a wall angle of 40° and stepdown amount of 0.25-mm yielded the lowest surface roughness as 1.389-µm for Ra and 7.433-µm for Rz. Compared to the standard forming tool, the roller-ball tool performed better both surface roughness and thickness distribution results. However, the most effective parameter was found to be the wall angles in relation to the surface roughness. FEM analysis was made for thickness distributions with the same process conditions for each tool type. The actual measurements for thickness distribution were similar to the results obtained from FEM analysis.