A Comprehensive Review on Experimental Conditions, Strategies, Performance, and Applications of Incremental Forming for Deformation Machining

Abstract

The demand for product customization and flexible manufacturing techniques is growing day by day to meet the rapid changes in customer requirements. The current review presents the developments in the domains of incremental sheet forming (ISF) and deformation machining (DM) strategies to obtain thin monolithic geometries. The study focuses on the literature on room temperature single point incremental forming that can be applied to the DM. Thin structural parts are challenging to produce by machining because they have inadequate static and dynamic stiffness and low thermal stability. Significant research work on the evolution of diverse theories that emerged to address the fundamental mechanisms of ISF and DM processes has been reported in the literature. This paper presents an outline of the significant process and response parameters, experimental strategies, deformation mechanics and fracture behavior, toolpath generation techniques, and processes’ applications. The paper reports the motivation, research directions, existing gaps, and expansion in the domains of DM processes. The paper also outlines the evolution of incremental forming for deformation machining in the context of future critical applications in the domains of biomedical, aerospace, and automotive engineering.