The Effect of the Punch Radius in Dieless Incremental Forming

L. Carrino, G. Giuliano and M. Strano

Universit di Cassino, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, via di Biasio 43, 03043 Cassino (FR), Italy

Abstract
The dieless incremental forming process is an innovative sheet metal working technology where a considerable
amount of knowledge and intelligence is required, in order to obtain accurate and efficient operations. In fact, in
conventional forming process the final shape is mostly determined by the die shape. In dieless incremental forming,
however, the final shape must be predicted and controlled only by means of a proper process design. For this reason,
several issues of this process must still be investigated on a scientific base. This paper is meant as a little step towards a full
comprehension of the dieless forming process, and as an aid towards an intelligent process planning.
In most sheet metal incremental forming processes (shear spinning, flowforming, dieless forming), the deformation occurs
by pure shear. The main process parameters are the feed rate, the part conicity and the punch radius r. Formability in
incremental forming has been often investigated and it is well recognized that severe strain may occur before fracture.
Thinning and fracture largely depend on the part conicity. Besides, decreasing the feed rate has a positive effect. On the
contrary, the effect of the punch radius r has been seldom explored, in quantitative terms. The purpose of the paper is to
investigate the effect of r on the formability of thin sheet metals, when plastically deformed by incremental forming.
Keywords: incremental forming, sheet metal, pure shear deformation

1. The effect of process variables on formability

In Figure 1, some incremental forming processes of
sheets are depicted. In these processes, one or more small
punches or rollers plastically deform a metal sheet, by
performing concentric or spiral-like trajectories onto its
surface. In conventional spinning (Fig. 1a) the sheet
thickness t0 is unnoticeably changed by the process. In
shear spinning (Fig. 1b) and dieless forming (Fig. 1c), the
thickness reduction depends mostly on the part shape. In
flowforming, the thickness reduction is determined by the
clearance between the punch and the die. For all of these
processes, the most important parameters are: the sheet
material and initial thickness t0 [mm]; the nominal final
part conicity [rad]; the horizontal part curvature radius
[mm]; the punch feed rate fz [mm/rev], attack angle
[mm/rev] and radius r [mm]. Formability is mainly

limited by two risks, described as follows.

Wrinkling, which is triggered by an excess of
circumferential compressive stresses. In spinning the
risk of wrinkling in the undeformed flange area
increases for large values of both fz and [1]. In the
dieless forming process, the risk of wrinkling is
extremely small [2].
Fracture by tearing, which is triggered by an excess
of principal strains. In all mentioned processes, for
small values of conicity and large values of feed
rate fz, the risk of part tearing increases [2] [3].
It clearly appears that the two most influencing
parameters on formability are and fz. As far as the
punch radius is concerned, its shape is critical in
determining the final sheet surface roughness, in
combination with the feed rate fz: larger radii are generally
used for obtaining a better surface finish [1] [4].

Fig. 1. (a) spinning; (b) shear spinning; (c) negative dieless forming.

A quite extensive scientific knowledge is available about

the effect of the punch radius on the forming force
components [4] [5], especially for shear spinning. On the
contrary, the potential effect of the punch shape, and
particularly of its end radius r on formability has been
seldom investigated. Some results available in the
literature describe a decrease of formability for small radii
[6]. Other sources indicate no significant effect on
formability [7]. Previous results published by the authors
[8] seem to indicate that formability significantly
decreases with decreasing punch radius. The purpose of
the present study is to give a deeper look at this issue, and
to confirm the results obtained in [8].
The paper is organised as follows: initially, a scientific
background is given with a brief literature review about
incremental forming processes. Then, a description of the
process mechanics is proposed, with details on the effect
of the punch radius on the shear deformation mode.
Finally, the results of FEM simulations are presented, run
with two different commercial packages, validated by
means of experiments conducted onto aluminium sheets.
The main conclusions are that formability is determined
by the uniformity of the strain distribution and improves if
the punch radius increases.

We can assume that, unless the deformation is locally

perturbed by a small horizontal curvature radius or by
relevant friction forces, the tangential strain is the minor
planar strain and is equal to =min=0. The true strain in
the longitudinal direction l of Fig. 2, is therefore the
major strain and is equal to l=max=t. A representation
of the safe deformation points in the conventional FLD
space (min,max) would yield a cloud of points
concentrated along the max axis, with some points in the
first quadrant. Many papers in the literature [9] show that
the forming limits obtained by incremental forming are
significantly higher than the conventionally determined
FLD0 point. However, the FLD representation is
misleading. In fact, if the deformation is by simple shear,
the planar strains max, min are not measured along the
principal directions of strain ( 1 and 2 in Fig. 2). These lay
at 45 degrees with the polar axes and z . Indeed, by
simple geometrical considerations, the shear strain z is:

z=cotg()/2

Under the given assumptions, i.e. if the deformation paths

always follows uniform shearing, the failure limit is

2. The theoretical effect of punch radius on

formability in shear forming
A theoretical basis for explaining the effect of r in
shear forming (shear spinning, negative and positive
dieless forming) is given hereby. The deformation
mechanics of incremental forming processes dominated
by simple shear modes is presented. An horizontal and
planar sheet metal, with initial thickness t0 is deformed by
simple shear to a conical final geometry with vertical
conicity and final thickness t=t0sin(). An axial cross
section is shown in Fig. 2. The true strain, measured in the
thickness direction t is therefore:
t=ln(t/t0)=ln(sin())
(1)

(2)

Fig. 2. Axial cross section of a shear forming process.

sheet

/2
/2

r
c

/2
/2

fz sheet
punch
b

punch

r
c

fz

Fig. 3. Axial cross section of a dieless forming with f >c (left) and f <c (right).

not determined by plastic instability (diffused or localised

necking, as in most sheet forming processes), but merely
by material damage, which is mainly a function of
cotg(). However, during actual forming, several factors
may perturb the deformation and generate a deviation
from uniform shearing: stress concentration due to a small
curvature radius, local tensile strains due to excessive
friction forces, non uniform loading conditions, etc. In the
following, the potential perturbations induced on uniform
shear deformation by the effect of r will be studied, with
particular reference to dieless negative forming.
2.1. Uniformity of longitudinal strains

(4)

In Fig. 4, the plot of the maximum elongation vs. the

punch radius is given. It shows that as the radius r
increases, the risk of non uniform deformation due to
tensile stresses is initially constant, then very rapidly
decreases until f=c, i.e. until r reaches a critical value,
given by the following Eq. 5:
r= fz *sin()/cos2()

(5)

After that, the value of l% slowly decreases.

In Fig. 3 an axial cross sectional view of the process

is pictured. The circles represent the position of the punch
at two subsequent passes with feed rate fz, over the same
tangential location. The horizontal component of the feed
rate is f = fztg(). The chord beneath the contact line
between the punch and the sheet is c=rsin(/2-). In the
left part of Fig. 3, the case when f>c is printed. The
initially horizontal segment (the thick grey line) of the
sheet of length b, after each pass of the punch, will be
transformed into a straight inclined segment of length
b/sin(). However, this deformation is unsupported by the
punch and, as a consequence, there is a risk of thinning
and non uniform deformation. The maximum theoretical
elongation l%1 of the sheet is:
l%1 =1/sin()

l%2 =r/fxarcsin(f/r)

(3)

When f<c, the process is more incremental, i.e.

more local. Any material point of the sheet will undergo
more than one forming step and will be at some point
directly in contact with the punch. The maximum possible
elongation l%2 of any material line in this case will occur
when an initially straight segment of length f is
transformed, by the action of the punch, into a curved arc
of length rarcsin(f/r). The maximum elongation is:

2.2. Tangential strain due to friction

From what appears in Section 2.1, in order to have
uniform deformation, the punch radius should be as large
as possible. The beneficial effect of a larger punch
diameter is even greater if friction forces are considered.
In the axial direction (see the cross section in Fig. 3), no
significant sliding is present and friction forces are nearly
irrelevant. On the contrary, in the tangential direction
some relative motion between the punch and the tool
occurs. The theoretical planar strain in the tangential
direction should be null. I f 0 at some points, i.e. if
localised thinning at the punch bottom occurs, this can
have a detrimental effect on formability. The most
significant portion of the tangential strain at the punch
bottom is due to friction. In Fig. 5, a tangential cross
sectional view of the process is given. The tangential
stress due to friction, according to the rope formula [10],
is proportional to the angle of wrap , which can be
approximated as:

r fz
r > fz
arccos
=
r
/ 2
r fz

(6)

l%

Maximum elongation per forming step

1.8

fz=0.773 mm/rev
=0.697
fz=1.5 mm/rev
=0.9

1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2

r (mm)

0.0
0

longitudinal strain (see Fig. 4) and on the amount of

tangential strain (see Fig. 6), it might be concluded that
formability of sheet metals, in shear incremental forming
processes, should decrease as the radius r increases.
However, there is a third reason for formability to
decrease when r-values are small. In fact, as the punch
gets smaller (in respect of the sheet wall thickness), the
risk of scratching the sheet surface is greater.
Experimentally, it has been verified that, especially with
thin sheets, small surface scratches or cracks may cause
premature fracture. Besides, when the punch is smaller,
there is a local concentration of contact pressure (which
might be indicated by the effective stress ) and the risk
of tearing for an excess of local shear stress is greater.

Fig. 4. Effect of r on maximum elongation per step

3. FEM simulations and experiments of negative

dieless forming

punch

Undeformed
sheet
fz

tangential
direction

r-fz

Deformed
sheet
Fig. 5. Schematic axial cross section of shear forming

PAM-STAMP

fz=1.5 mm/rev
=0.9

1.2

time integration
explicit
type of shell
BWC (see the users
element
manual)
# of thickness
5
integration points
planar integration reduced to 1 point
calculated strains 11 , 12 , 22 , 33

1.0
0.8

fz=0.773 mm/rev
=0.697

0.6
0.4
0.2

r (mm)

0.0
0

10

20

In order to confirm the theoretically predicted effect

of the punch radius on the incremental forming process,
several FEM simulations with shell elements, with two
different commercial software packages (Marc and PamStamp) have been run. In Table 1, the main numerical and
Table 1
Main parameters used in FEM simulations

Tangential angle of wrap

1.6
1.4

3.1. Numerical results

30

40

50

Fig. 6. Effect of r on the tangential arc length

The angle of wrap significantly decreases with

increasing r. In the examples shown in Fig. 6, reaches a
saturation for r greater than about 40 mm.
2.3. Stress concentration
From a theoretical point of view, combining the
effect of the punch radius on the homogeneity of the

MARC
implicit
element (see the
users manual)
11

full gaussian
all
quadrangular, 0.8
initial shape of
mm axial length;
square, 5 mm
elements
/20 hoop arc length
refinement level
4
no refinement
contact algorithm non linear penalty
direct constraint
springback
no
yes
2.5, 5, 10, 20, 40
1.5, 2, 2.5, 3,
punch radius r
mm
3.5, 4, 4.5 mm
initial t0
1 mm
0.3 mm
average fz
0.773 mm/rev
1 mm/rev
0.697 rad
1.16 rad
average
number of steps
24 revolutions
6 revolutions
shape of
square
round
blankholder
50 mm
32 mm
initial radius
friction coeff.
0.1
0

(a)

(b)

Fig. 7. Final mesh for Pam-Stamp (a) and Marc (b) simulations; vertical displacement is plotted.

(a)

(b)
Fig. 8. (a) original picture of a deformed part; (b) 25 corresponding FEM profiles, one for each pass of the punch.

process parameters used in both simulation sets are

shown. It must be noted that, since the element
formulation used in Pam-Stamp does not predict normal
shearing, adaptive remeshing has been used with a small
final element length, in order to better represent the real
process mechanics. The refinement of the Pam-Stamp
mesh has been activated only in the upper-right quarter of
the part (see Fig. 7a), in order to save computational time.
The FEM results have been measured along the
bisector of that quadrant. The mesh used with Marc is
coarser (see Fig. 7b), since 11 integration points have
been used and shear strains can be predicted. The
accuracy of all FEM simulations has been evaluated by
running two experiments, one with the conditions
simulated in PAM-STAMP and one with the
conditions simulated in MARC. The shapes of the
formed specimens has been measured by a Coordinate
Measuring Machine (CMM) and has been compared to
the FEM profiles (see Fig. 8). The shapes predicted by
the FEM codes are surprisingly close to the
experimental ones.
Starting from the considerations of Section 2, three
different indicators have been built and used in order to
assess the formability of every simulation run,
respectively called I1, I2 and I3. The first criterion used for
evaluating the process formability is the uniformity of the
deformation. As stated in Section 2, the maximum

tangential true strain is also the minor planar strain

=min. For uniform deformation, should be equal to 0.
Any positive or negative value of tangential strain can be
seen as an instability generated by tangential forces (i.e.
by the angle of wrap ). A large maximum absolute value
of the FEM-calculated minor strain I1=max(minFEM) is a
clear indicator of reduced formability.
The value of the thickness strain is a function of the
actual part conicity, (seen as a function of the part depth
z). The thickness strain should be equal to t()=ln[sin()]
for a perfect simple shear deformation. The difference
between the FEM-calculated and the theoretical strain
I2()=max(tFEM()-t()) can be taken as a measure of
deviation from simple shear, i.e. as another indicator of
formability.
In Fig. 9, the first two formability indicators are
shown as a function of punch radius for the Pam-Stamp
simulations: the trend of I2() shows a good agreement
with the predictions stated in Section 2. However, for
small r-values, there seem to be a slight increase of I1.
In order to verify the trend of I1 for small r-values,
the plot obtained by the Marc simulations (with
r<4.5mm) is reported in Fig. 10. It confirms that I1
increases until r reaches about 5 mm.
As already stated in Section 2.3, we may take a
measure of stress as a third formability indicator. As an
example, the maximum equivalent plastic stress:

35%

2 ( =0.760)

30%

2 ( =0.937)

25%

2 ( =1)

20%

2 ( =1.09)

15%

10%
5%
0%

r [mm]

-5% 0

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60

-10%
-15%

Fig. 9. Plot of I1 and I2 vs. r for Pam-Stamp simulations.

0.0045
0.004
0.0035
0.003
0.0025
0.002
0.0015
0.001
0.0005
0

Fig. 10. Plot of I1 vs. r for Marc simulations.

MPa

120
100
80
60
40
20
0

I3 (t0=1 m m)
I3 (t0=0.3 m m)

r [mm]

10

15

4. Conclusions

In conclusion, all the analyses conducted during this

study, either theoretical (see Section 2), numerical (see
Section 3.1) and experimental (see Section 3.3) point at
the same result: the punch radius should be chosen as
large as possible. However, two main factors represent a
limitation in using a very large value of r. In fact, as the
punch radius increases:
manufacturing parts with geometrical complexity
(small values of horizontal radius ) becomes very
difficult or impossible;
the forces required for accomplishing the forming
operations become larger.
References

r [mm]
1

punch with r =2.5 mm.

20

Fig. 11. Plot of I3 vs. r for Pam-Stamp (t0=1 mm) and Marc
(t0=0.3 mm).

I3=max( ) can be used. In Fig. 11 the plot of I3 vs. r is

printed (for both PAM-STAMP and MARC simulations),
showing a clear and monotonous decreasing trend.
3.2. Experimental results
Some negative dieless incremental forming
experiments have been run using a given tool path with
decreasing -value, and stopped only at fracture, using
two different punch radii: 2.5 and 5 mm. Formability has
been measured by simply evaluating the maximum part
depth obtained with each experiment. The results
confirmed that the punch with r = 5mm outperformed the

[1] Wong C.C., Dean T.A., Lin J., A review of spinning, shear
forming and flow forming processes, International Journal
of Machine Tools & Manufacture. 43 (2003) 14191435.
[2] Strano M., Ruggiero M., Carrino L., Representation of
forming limits for negative incremental forming of thin
sheet metals, in: Proceedings of the International Deep
Drawing Research Group, Germany, 2004.
[3] Kawai K., Yang L.N. et al., A flexible shear spinning of
truncated conical shells with a general purpose mandrel, J.
of Mater. Proc. Tech. 113 (2001) 28-33.
[4] Chen M.D., Forecast of shear spinning force and surface
roughness of spun cones by employing regression analysis,
International Journal of machine tools and manufacture 41
(2001) 17211734.
[5] Kobayashi S., Hall I.K., Thomsen E.G., A theory of shear
spinning of cones, Transactions of the ASME, Journal of
Engineering for Industry 81 (1961) 485495.
[6] Kim Y.H., Park J.J., Effect of process parameters on
formability in incremental forming of sheet metal, J. of
Mater. Proc. Tech., 130-131 (2003) 42-46.
[7] Kegg R.L., A new test method for determination of
spinnability of metals, Transactions of the ASME, Journal of
Engineering for Industry 83 (1961) 119124.
[8] Strano M., Park J.J., Technological Representation of
Forming Limits for Negative Incremental Forming of Thin
Aluminum Sheets, Journal of Manufacturing Processes, 7, 2
(2005) 122-129.
[9] Kim Y.H., Park J.J., Fundamental studies on the incremental
sheet metal forming technique, Journal of Materials
Processing Technology 140 (2003) 7453.
[10] Wagoner R.H., Chenot J.L., Fundamentals of Metal
Forming. John Wiley & Sons, 1996.