Robot Applications in Sheet-Metal Forming
G. L. Kovács, J. Nacsa
Last modified: 2020-12-26
Abstract
A specific robotic application for sheet metal fotming will be discussed In our paper. Today many industrial sectors use forming processes in order to produce sheet metal components. The most widely used are the stamping process and deep drawing, based on big and costly dies and presses. Their main advantages are the short time of production and high productivity, This process requires big initial investment and specific dies for each part, which makes the process inflexible. A new, optimized, flexible, safe and environmental-friendly sheet metal forming technology is suggested. The new technology may replace traditional processes for short and medium sued batches and for Rapid Prototyping applications. The shaping process is based on the incremental sheet forming technique (ISF). While current ISF processes replace the upper die by a generic forming tool and the lower die by a simple supportmg die whose geometry depends on the final piece geometry, we propose to substitute both upper and lower dies with generic forming tools placed in opposition at both sides of the blank. Local plastic deformation is obtained by the pressure of both tools along the sheet metal. Both tools may be moved by robots, however an appropriate CNC milling machine is suggested for the upper tool. The resulting procedure will be called dieless sheet-metal forming (DSF).
Keywords
Robot Applications; Sheet-Metal Forming; robotic application
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