Prospects of the incremental forming technology in modern manufacturing

New metal forming technologies can only be developed on the basis of information technologies. This principle is applied in CNC systems and can be implemented in sheet forming. The successful development of production is based on a rapid response to demand. Therefore, the most important factors in the production are its flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs. In the area of metal forming, this approach is difficult to apply since the implementation of new technologies needs time to develop the stamping equipment and considerable investments on the preparatory stages of production. In this paper, the technology of incremental forming of sheet materials is considered. It makes it possible to quickly respond to market demands due to a significant reduction in complexity of pre-production and subsequent manufacturing stages. Typical deformation schemes are analyzed, and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. The relevance of the incremental forming technology and the areas of its implementation in this country are considered. The research has shown that the incremental forming technology is widely studied abroad and successfully used at the stage of blank production. The application of this flexible approach to manufacturing parts is especially important for prototyping and designing products, in aerospace industry and medicine, and is an important task of the up-to-date competitive steel market.

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