Investigation of flexible free incremental sheet forming (FFISF) process to form Ti6Al4V free-form surface panel at room temperature

Titanium alloy sheet metal shows promising applicability in the aerospace industry with excellent mechanical properties, while its limited room-temperature formability is essential to be improved by thermal-assisted methods, with expensive equipment and much energy consumption. In this work, the flexible free incremental sheet forming process is adopted to manufacture Ti6Al4V free-form surface panel at room temperature. The strain evolution and thickness distribution during this new process are also analysed through finite element methods to reveal the deformation mechanism. Experimental and simulated results show that this process has potential advantages in rapidly fabricating low-ductility sheet metal with complex shapes at room temperature by improving strain and thickness distributions.