Studies on the Springback Mechanism of Incremental Sheet Forming Based on FEM Simulation

Incremental sheet forming (ISF) is an innovative and highly flexible sheet metal forming process for small batch production and prototyping, but springback is a very important factor to influence the quality of incremental sheet forming. This paper investigates the springback mechanism of incremental sheet forming using numerical method. A three-dimensional elasto-plastic finite element model was established for the simulation of the incremental sheet forming process. In this model, the combination of dynamic explicit algorithm and the static implicit algorithm was proposed to calculate the whole forming process including springback. The results of numerical simulation, such as, the strain history and distribution, the stress state and distribution, etc., are discussed in details. Moreover, the results confirm that residual stress has been releasing during forming process, which reveal the peculiar springback characteristic of incremental sheet forming process.