Incremental forming of Cu-35Zn brass alloy

Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) and particularly its Single Point (SPIF) variant has been studied intensively over the last years given the potential for low-cost prototyping and small batches production. Numerical and experimental works have been covering a widespan of materials and geometries. This paper fills an important gap regarding studies of the SPIF process applied to brass alloys, and particularly the commonly used Cu-35Zn brass alloy. Despite being a material widely used in industry for centuries, with excellent cold formability and innumerous applications, there is still no relevant information on the mechanical response and properties of this material under SPIF. This research is based in SPIF experiments with brass alloy sheets with different thicknesses (0.50, 0.70 and 1.00 mm), to obtain data such as forming forces or forming fracture lines to be compared against standard forming limit diagrams or against other materials under ISF. Other data like friction during the process was evaluated as well. Fifteen sets of experiments were conducted, using different values of step down (0.10, 0.50 and 1.00 mm) and two forming tools with diameters 10 and 15 mm.