The overall goal of this project is to explore concepts for flexible forming of sheet parts of employing in-process measurement and control concepts. The intent is to eliminate long setup and tooling development times, to greatly improve the process of conventional tooling design and to permit small lot size production of complex sheet parts. The work will focus on refinement of the Deformation Transfer Function concept, and on the coupling of this concept with the flexible forming system that the principal investigator has worked with prior to this project. The control theory work will concentrate on making stronger theoretical connection between the transfer function concept and elastic springback in forming, and on extensions to polymer and composite material. Experimental work will be conducted on the axisymmetric system and on the variable configuration die system. The variable configuration forming machine itself will be fully evaluated, and some novel forming methods based on its unique characteristics will be tested. Finally, a completely integrated shape commanded forming system, comprising the new forming machine and the Deformation Transfer Function forming control strategy will be developed.
