Designing, Manufacturing and Processing of Tailored Blanks in a Sheet-bulk Metal Forming Process

Sheet-bulk metal forming is an innovative method for the manufacturing of functional components by applying bulk metal forming processes or combined sheet and bulk metal forming processes to sheet metal. The investigated process combines deep drawing and upsetting. Occurring 2D and 3D stress and strain states lead to challenges regarding the material flow control during the forming process to ensure a high die filling and accurate part geometry. Regarding these challenges, the application of conventional semi-finished products is not expedient wherefore Tailored Blanks with a process adapted sheet thickness distribution are applied to the forming process. The Tailored Blank geometry is designed by a numerical analysis and manufactured by an orbital forming process considering the resulting geometric part properties during deep drawing and upsetting. Therefore, the whole process chain from the conventional circular blank to the finished functional component is linked and modelled. This enables a realistic description of the part properties as the effective plastic strain caused in the manufacturing of semi-finished products is taken into account in the processing of the material. Subsequently the results are verified by experimental tests.