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Exploration of Appropriate Tool Material and Lubricant for Elevated Temperature Incremental Forming of Aluminium Alloy

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Abstract

In metal forming processes, the material of forming tools and lubricants play a very important role. It not only influences the forming process but also affects the surface finish of the produced product. Moreover, the product cost is directly associated with the cost of tools and lubricants. The present research explores appropriate tool materials and suitable lubricants to be used in Elevated Temperature Incremental Forming (ET-IF) of Aluminium alloy for efficient results. For the purpose, tool materials and lubricants used in Incremental Forming processes at higher temperatures were identified from the literature. The physical and chemical properties of the reported tool materials and lubricants, along with the established applications, were studied. Besides, the availability and cost of the lubricants, as well as machinability of the tool materials, were also considered to identify a set of feasible tool materials and lubricants for possible ET-IF applications. Subsequently, experiments were carried out with the identified set of tool materials and lubricants. Based on the observations made and the experimental results, different tool materials and lubricants were evaluated. The work recommends Tool steel (EN-31) and Molybdenum disulfide mixture as the most appropriate tool material and lubricant, respectively.

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None, software development was not within the scope of the presented work.

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Acknowledgement

This research was financially supported by Impacting Research, Innovation and Technology (IMPRINT) India project of Government of India (Project Number: 5506). The authors wish to acknowledge the funding agency.

Funding

The research work was funded by IMPRINT-India grant (Project no. 5506) with the support of the Department of Heavy Industries, Government of India and Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

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The work was primarily done by Mr. Swarit Anand Singh with the support of Mr. Satwik Priyadarshi under the supervision of Prof. Puneet Tandon.

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Correspondence to Puneet Tandon.

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Singh, S.A., Priyadarshi, S. & Tandon, P. Exploration of Appropriate Tool Material and Lubricant for Elevated Temperature Incremental Forming of Aluminium Alloy. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 22, 217–225 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-020-00447-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-020-00447-0

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