Applying Ultrasonic-Assisted Incremental Sheet Forming to Al 5052 Aluminum Alloy

Abstract

In this paper, the influence of ultrasonic vibration on the forming forces and surface quality of products formed using an ultrasonic-assisted incremental sheet forming (UISF) method was investigated and compared with an incremental sheet forming (ISF) method. The elements and parameters used for research include a sheet of Al 5052 aluminum alloy with thickness of 1.0 mm, a lathe with a feed rate of 70–130–225 rpm, and step size of 1.0–1.5–2.0 mm. The results show that ultrasonic vibration significantly reduces the forming forces, of which the main forming force Fzmax is reduced by about 20%. Besides, the results also show that the surface quality of products formed via UISF is significantly improved compared to that formed by ISF.

Keywords

• incremental forming
• ultrasonic-assisted
• force
• forming