Journal of Materials Processing Technology 177 (2006) 413–416

A force measuring based strategy for failure prevention

in incremental forming
G. Ambrogio a,∗ , L. Filice a , F. Micari b
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, CS, Italy
b Department of Manufacturing and Management Engineering, University of Palermo, 90100 Palermo, Italy
Received 4 January 2006; received in revised form 28 March 2006; accepted 6 April 2006

Abstract
Incremental forming processes show a number of advantages compared to the traditional processes but, at the same time, some drawbacks are
clearly known.
Current problems, include the slowness of the process, low accuracy and a lack of knowledge in the field of material formability.
This paper is focused on the latter issue: an industrially oriented methodology for detecting the approach of failure in incremental forming is
proposed. The approach is based on the analysis of the trend of the forming force in order to assess whether the process can be run safely. If not, a
proper strategy, to avoid material failure, is proposed and experimentally validated.
© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Incremental forming; Force monitoring; Sheet metal forming

1. Introduction indicator of material failure approaching, a simple routine was

implemented in order to correct in process the main process
As known, incremental forming is assuming today a relative parameters (i.e. the tool depth step and the punch diameter). This
importance and massive efforts are spent for its full understand- was done according to the measured force trend and a properly
ing and assessment [1]. In fact, significant results have been defined process knowledge base.
reached as far as the material formability, process mechanics and The proposed strategy was tested by developing a proper
geometrical accuracy of the obtained parts are regarded [2–5]. experiment, as discussed in detail in the next sections.
On the other hand, the natural process slowness, due to its
characteristic of point-to-point forming process, is one of the
2. Force trend in single point incremental forming
main drawback which limits the industrial application, if large
(SPIF)
batches have to be manufactured [6]. Anyway, the production of
small lots or unique parts [7], requires a particular attention too.
As above introduced, this work is based on forming force
On the other hand a finite element approach is not suitable, due
measuring and analysis. In this field, preliminary experimental
to the very long computation time [8]. On the contrary, it is clear
investigations were carried out by Jesweit et al. [9], who mea-
that an on-process control strategy, able to opportunely update
sured the force trend in single point incremental forming (SPIF)
the process parameters, could represent a point of strength for
and two points incremental forming (TPIF) by using a cantilever
improving the process robustness when complex geometries are
type of sensors, mounted on the punch.
taken into account.
On the contrary, in this study the vertical component of the
In this paper, the above-mentioned approach was followed
forming force between the tool and the sheet was measured
according to some assessments deriving from the analysis on
utilising a piezoelectric dynamometer placed below the sheet
the forming force trend during the process. More in detail, once
clamping frame (see Fig. 1).
it was stated that the force trend may effectively work as an
The high stiffness of the system prevents any measuring affec-
tion due to the frame bending effect. Of course, once the wall
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0984 494640; fax: +39 0984 494673. inclination angle imposed to the blank is known, the two force
E-mail address: g.ambrogio@unical.it (G. Ambrogio). components (i.e. tangential and normal) can be easily calculated.

0924-0136/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2006.04.076
414 G. Ambrogio et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 177 (2006) 413–416
Fig. 1. The utilised measuring system.
The measured force trend is directly influenced by the tech-
nological parameters [10].
First of all, the instantaneous measured value depends on the
sheet thickness; more in detail, increasing the thickness, the mea-
sured load increases. As well, a strong correlation exists between
the forming load and the wall inclination angle: increasing the
above-mentioned geometrical parameter, the load peak increases
as well.
Actually, up to the force peak, bending is the most relevant
mechanism in the specimen; after the peak, the typical stretching
mechanics begins and the force trend presents a more complex
behaviour, due to the two different effects induced on the sheet,
namely thinning (which tends to reduce the required force) and
material strain-hardening (that, on the contrary, results in the
force increasing).
As a consequence, the force trend after the peak is determined
by the two mentioned phenomena. More in detail, as highlighted
in Fig. 2, varying the process parameters, three different force
trends are recognisable [10]:
1. Steady-state curves (SSc): Once the peak is reached, the
forming force remains constant because the material thin-
ning effect is immediately compensated by strain hardening;
Fig. 2. Different forming force trends.
Fig. 3. Forming force trend measured during test with a double lateral surface.
this typically happens when a small wall inclination angle is
imposed.
2. Polynomial curves (Pnc): After the peak, the curve shows
a low negative gradient due to the large thinning during the
former stage of stretching. This phenomenon is confirmed by
the accurate analysis of the deformed sheet and it is partially
due to sheet material wear: in single point incremental form-
ing the tool works several times on the same portion of the
sheet (in particular when the fixed depth step is small) and
it may cause a sensible wear, especially when soft materials
are deformed. After a few millimetres of depth, the equilib-
rium between stretching (and thinning) and strain hardening
is achieved again and a steady forming force is measured.
This trend is typically monitored when low strength materials
are worked with heavy but not dangerous process parameters.
3. Monotonically decreasing curves (MDc): After peak, mate-
rial thinning plays the most relevant role and material strain-
hardening is not able to permit the achievement of equilib-
rium conditions. In this case material failure occurs.
According to the above considerations, it is worth pointing
out that the curve gradient after the peak can be assumed as a
critical indicator for the investigated process. In fact, up to a
threshold value, the process can be considered as a safe one.
On the contrary, when the measured gradient is larger than the
critical value, the process has to be considered as unsafe.
Moreover, thanks to a wide experimental activity, it was pos-
sible to assess that the critical gradient value does not depend
on the previous process history [10]. In other words, if the pro-
cess conditions change, for instance thanks to a variation of
the inclination angle of the wall, an instantaneous variation of
the forming load occurs and, after few coils, the trend becomes
independent respect to the previous history. Above all, the force
gradient critical value does not depend on the history. Fig. 3
shows a force trend detected for a test where the wall incli-
nation angle was increased after a depth of 20 mm. The force
curve modifies its slope reaching, after few loops, the same value
reached when the new inclinational angle is adopter from the real
beginning.
The experimental results demonstrated that the force trend
and, as a consequence, the force gradient after the peak, besides
the wall inclination angle and the sheet thickness, strongly
 G. Ambrogio et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 177 (2006) 413–416 415

Table 1
Range of the investigate process parameters
Parameters Lowest value Highest value

Wall inclination angle 50◦ 80◦

Tool diameter 10 mm 20 mm
Sheet thickness 1 mm 2 mm
Tool depth step 0.3 mm 2 mm
Tool speed rotation 50 rpm 200 rpm
Tool feed 500 mm/min 2000 mm/min

depends on the tool diameter and the tool depth step, or, more
exactly, on their ratio (i.e. Dp /p): lower values of Dp /p corre-
spond to lower curve gradients and therefore allow a higher
process stability.
As a conclusion, it can be stated that carrying out an on-line
force monitoring, it is possible to individuate the conditions in
which failure approaches and, therefore, it is possible to set-up
an effective process parameters correction able to move towards
safer process conditions.

3. Failure prevention: the correcting strategy

Taking into account the large base of knowledge built on the
Incremental Forming of AA 1050-O aluminium alloy sheets,
with different initial thickness and process parameters (see
Table 1), the critical value of the force gradient can be estimated
utilising the simple law reported in Eq. (1):
Fig. 4. The failure prevention algorithm.
ters directly influence the formability and two possible directions
can be pursued:

K∗ = 10s0.9 (1) • Punch diameter reduction: In this way a more localised form-
ing effect is obtained, wear reduces and formability increases.
where s is the sheet thickness. More in detail, this law was Vice versa, a worse surface quality is obtained. A minimum
derived by using a proper experimental plane and an analysis diameter versus thickness ratio equal to about 10 can be
of variance (ANOVA) analysis [10]. utilised for the investigated material.
The failure prevention strategy is based on the implementa- • Tool depth step change: Actually, this parameter has to be
tion of a simple algorithm as reported in Fig. 4. changed according to the punch dimension; more in detail, the
The force is continuously monitored by the measuring system
and a proper routine calculates the current force gradient, at the
time j, as follows:
Fj − Fj−ε
Kj = (2)
Hj − Hj−ε
where ε is a user-defined buffer equal, in this study, to 3 mm of
punch depth. This buffer size is fixed as a trade off between the
process sensitivity and robustness, avoiding both the influence
of the data scattering and an unacceptable delay in the control.
Fj (N) and Hj (mm) are the actual values of the tangential force
and the component depth, respectively.
If the current calculated Kj value, updated after each coil,
reaches the critical one (K* ), the process parameters are changed
in order to take in control the process. In particular, two parame- Fig. 5. Measured force trend with and without process control.

Table 2
Process parameters for the first run (without control)
α s Dp p Actual depth Measured K-factor Result

65◦ 20 mm −8 N/mm OK
1 mm 18 mm 0.3 mm
70◦ 28.3 mm −12 N/mm KO
416 G. Ambrogio et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 177 (2006) 413–416
Table 3
Process parameters for the second run (utilising control strategy)
α s Dp
65◦
18 mm
70◦ 1 mm
70◦ 12 mm
Fig. 6. The comparison between the final parts obtained with and without the control strategy.
step size has to be modified in order to reduce the ratio between
the tool diameter and the depth step itself. Anyway, for the
investigated material, the pitch can be reduced up to about
0.3–0.5 mm, otherwise, the repeated sliding on the same sheet
material would increase wear and neutralise the beneficial
effects on formability due to the more distributed deformation
on the sheet.
The above simple rules represent the main guidelines for the
control algorithm, the effectiveness of which was tested on a set
of experiments.
It is considered, for instance, the case of a simple truncated
cone with a double slope.
The process was firstly run without force monitoring and con-
trol utilizing the parameters reported in Table 2. After 28.3 mm
material failure was detected.
As expected, the curve slope changed, after the former
20 mm, before the component breaking (Fig. 5).
Subsequently, the force monitoring and control strategy was
implemented. As it is reported in Table 3, and graphically com-
pared with the experiment carried out without force monitoring
in Fig. 5, the process parameters were changed after a total depth
of 26 mm when the force gradient reached the critical value.
The process was restarted and, in this case, the final part was
safely obtained (see Fig. 6).
4. Conclusions
Incremental Forming is often used to manufacture small
batches and, sometimes, unique components. An accurate pro-
cess design is not possible due to a lack of knowledge and the
inadequacy of the simulation tools. In this study a simple way
to monitor the safety of the process was developed, based on the
use of the force as a “spy variable”.
p Actual depth Measured K-factor Result
20 mm −8 N/mm OK
0.3 mm
26 mm −10 N/mm OK
1 mm 40 mm −7 N/mm OK
As demonstrated in the example case, the strategy can be very
effective when products with complex surfaces are required.
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