An analysis of the effect of various parameters on surface roughness, springback and thinning while performing single point incremental forming on polypropylene sheet

One of the sheet metal forming processes known as single point incremental forming (SPIF) uses simple tools instead of devoted costly dies and gives us the flexibility to incorporate the change in the design of the product by using the same tools. Polymers are increasingly used nowadays because of the higher strength to weight ratio. Polymers can be deformed in the required shape using SPIF. The effect of SPIF on polypropylene is studied experimentally in the current work. Springback, thinning and surface roughness are the responses studied while performing SPIF at room temperature. Tool diameter, wall-angle, step size and feed rate are the factors considered for the present study. The effect of the tool diameter was found to be significant in each of the responses considered. The increase in tool diameter causes an increase in the springback and surface roughness. The percentage of thinning and surface roughness was found to be increasing with the increase in wall angle. With the increase in wall angle, the percentage springback is found to be decreasing.