Optimised tool-path design to reduce thinning in incremental sheet forming process

Rising energy prices and customers’ increasing ecological awareness pushed energy efficient manufacturing to the top position in industrial interests. Actually, companies want to identify the most effective measures to increase energy efficiency in manufacturing processes looking at the sustainability of their product as a point of strength and not only as an extra-cost according to an ancient production vision. For the above considerations, the scientific community introduced in the last years newer technological alternatives to improve the global efficiency in production processes. Incremental Sheet Forming belongs to this family and can be classified as a flexible solution for the modern market requirement. Nowadays, if the points of strength of the above process are widely recognized, more efforts are still necessary to enhance the product performance allowing a wider industrial suitability. In particular, a significant problem which penalizes the quality of the manufacture parts, is the not homogeneous thickness distribution. The research here presented can be placed in this frame: a promising analytical model is highlighted and a user friendly procedure is set up to simplify the design phase with the aim to optimise the thickness distribution along the profile. Satisfactory experimental results which validate the proposed technique are also presented.