Study of incremental sheet forming process of PVC

In Manufacturing Engineering, there are several areas of knowledge focused on the study of manufacturing processes that give rise to products supplied to the processing industries and products to final consumers that can be processed from sheet, wires, rods and beams. In both cases, one of the most widely used manufacturing processes is the "Metal Forming" which is the mechanical process that pieces can be obtained by compression of solid metal in molds using plastic deformation of the material for filling the molds cavities. However, there is a process that can do the same without the need for molds, the so-called incremental sheet forming which consists of drawing the workpiece on a CNC form milling using a small cylindrical punch with a rounded tip. The purpose of this work is to make a study of the process of incremental sheet forming of polymers as a new type of rapid prototyping technology that is based on the process of forming material, different from the existing processes for removing or adding material. The tests were done in a geometry pyramid trunk format, in three subsequent stages and the objective is to evaluate some parameters such as temperature of working and the punch diameter in the final result of the prototype. The material chosen for the study was the PVC because that is present in many studies already done on the subject. Tests made with PVC indicated that a variation in 20 degrees C of material working temperature resulted in a significant increase in forming results during the tests.