Research on Cold Orbital Forming of Complex Sheet Metal of Aluminum Alloy

Abstract

This study aims at exploring the potentialities of cold orbital forming in forming complex sheet metal. Aiming at a complex mobile phone shell component of aluminum alloy, two technical schemes for cold orbital forming are first presented. Then, the optimized one, i.e., the more complex inner surface of mobile phone shell is arranged to be formed by the rocking punch with a complex motion, is determined by analyzing the nonuniform plastic deformation laws and punch filling behaviors. On the basis of the optimized technical scheme, the blank geometry in cold orbital forming of mobile phone shell is also optimized based on the forming status of the most difficult forming zone. The consistent finite element (FE) simulated and experimental results indicate that under the optimized technical scheme, not only the bosses in the mobile phone shell are fully formed but also the obtained flow lines are reasonable, which proves that the technical scheme presented in this study is feasible and cold orbital forming exhibits huge potentialities in forming complex sheet metal.