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The purposes of this review are to summarize the historical progress in the last 60 years of lightweight metal forming, to analyze the state-of-the-art, and to identify future directions in the context of Cyber-physically enabled circular economy. In honoring the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Manufacturing Engineering Division of ASME, this review paper first provides the impact of the metal forming sector on the economy and historical perspectives of metal forming research work published by the ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, followed by the motivations and trends in lightweighting. To achieve lightweighting, one needs to systematically consider: (1) materials and material characterization; (2) innovative forming processes; and (3) simulation tools for integrated part design and process design. A new approach for process innovation, i.e., the Performance-Constraints-Mechanism-Innovation (PCMI) framework, is proposed to systematically seek new processes. Finally, trends and challenges for the further development in circular economy are presented for future exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welding and joining of titanium aluminides is the key to making them more attractive in industrial fields. The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of recent progress in welding and joining of titanium aluminides, as well as to introduce current research and application. The possible methods available for titanium aluminides involve brazing, diffusion bonding, fusion welding, friction welding and reactive joining. Of the numerous methods, solid-state diffusion bonding and vacuum brazing have been most heavily investigated for producing reliable joints. The current state of understanding and development of every welding and joining method for titanium aluminides is addressed respectively. The focus is on the fundamental understanding of microstructure characteristics and processing-microstructure-property relationships in the welding and joining of titanium aluminides to themselves and to other materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Model validation has become an increasingly important issue in the decision-making process for model development, as numerical simulations have widely demonstrated their benefits in reducing development time and cost. Frequently, the trustworthiness of models is inevitably questioned in this competitive and demanding world. By definition, model validation is a means to systematically establish a level of confidence of models. To demonstrate the processes of model validation for simulation-based models, a sheet metal flanging process is used as an example with the objective that is to predict the final geometry, or springback. This forming process involves large deformation of sheet metals, contact between tooling and blanks, and process uncertainties. The corresponding uncertainties in material properties and process conditions are investigated and taken as inputs to the uncertainly propagation, where metamodels, known as a model of the model, are developed to efficiently and effectively compute the total uncertainly/variation of the final configuration. Three model validation techniques (graphical comparison, confidence interval technique, and r² technique) are applied and examined; furthermore, strength and weakness of each technique are examined. The latter two techniques offer a broader perspective due to the involvement of statistical and uncertainty analyses. The proposed model validation approaches reduce the number of experiments to one for each design point by shifting the evaluation effort to the uncertainty propagation of the simulation model rather than using costly physical experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing demand for customized products and rapid prototyping triggers the development of dieless forming process where the need of part-specific dies is eliminated compared to conventional forming processes. This paper presents a heat-assisted three-roll incremental rolling system capable of producing rods and tubes of various diameters without the need for die/tool replacement. The system incorporates two possible heating mechanisms, namely, an induction heater and a high-current power supply for electrically assisted forming. Due to its high flexibility and hot forming ability, this rolling system is ideal for low volume production or scientific research. The newly fabricated rolling machine was initially evaluated using low carbon steel rods. The experiments have shown that the machine can produce metallic rods down to 6 mm in diameter without apparent spiral marks on the outer surface of the rolled product using multiple passes. The finite element method (FEM) was used to analyze the reaction moment, depth of the spiral marks, and the effect of axial feeding speed on the spiral marks. The simulation model predicted the results of the experiments with less than a 10% error. The work established a flexible rolling platform for possible future research, which can include the study of interface behavior in the thermo-mechanical rolling processes, and the study of material behavior in this multi-axial multi-physics environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing demand for customized products and rapid prototyping triggers the development of dieless forming process where the need of part-specific dies is eliminated compared to conventional forming processes. This paper presents a heat-assisted three-roll incremental rolling system capable of producing rods and tubes of various diameters without the need for die/tool replacement. The system incorporates two possible heating mechanisms, namely, an induction heater and a high-current power supply for electrically assisted forming. Due to its high flexibility and hot forming ability, this rolling system is ideal for low volume production or scientific research. The newly fabricated rolling machine was initially evaluated using low carbon steel rods. The experiments have shown that the machine can produce metallic rods down to 6 mm in diameter without apparent spiral marks on the outer surface of the rolled product using multiple passes. The finite element method (FEM) was used to analyze the reaction moment, depth of the spiral marks, and the effect of axial feeding speed on the spiral marks. The simulation model predicted the results of the experiments with less than a 10% error. The work established a flexible rolling platform for possible future research, which can include the study of interface behavior in the thermo-mechanical rolling processes, and the study of material behavior in this multi-axial multi-physics environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing demand for customized products and rapid prototyping triggers the development of dieless forming process where the need of part-specific dies is eliminated compared to conventional forming processes. This paper presents a heat-assisted three-roll incremental rolling system capable of producing rods and tubes of various diameters without the need for die/tool replacement. The system incorporates two possible heating mechanisms, namely, an induction heater and a high-current power supply for electrically assisted forming. Due to its high flexibility and hot forming ability, this rolling system is ideal for low volume production or scientific research. The newly fabricated rolling machine was initially evaluated using low carbon steel rods. The experiments have shown that the machine can produce metallic rods down to 6 mm in diameter without apparent spiral marks on the outer surface of the rolled product using multiple passes. The finite element method (FEM) was used to analyze the reaction moment, depth of the spiral marks, and the effect of axial feeding speed on the spiral marks. The simulation model predicted the results of the experiments with less than a 10% error. The work established a flexible rolling platform for possible future research, which can include the study of interface behavior in the thermo-mechanical rolling processes, and the study of material behavior in this multi-axial multi-physics environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The forming of sheet metal into a desired and functional shape is a process, which requires an understanding of materials, mechanics, and manufacturing principles. Furthermore, producing consistent sheet metal components is challenging due to the nonlinear interactions of various material and process parameters. One of the major causes for the fabrication of inconsistent sheet metal parts is springback, the elastic strain recovery in the material after the tooling is removed. In this paper, springback of a steel channel forming process is controlled using an artificial neural network and a stepped binder force trajectory. Punch trajectory, which reflects variations in material properties, thickness and friction condition, was used as the key control parameter in the neural network. Consistent springback angles were obtained in experiments using this control scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]