Superplastic forming (SPF) is an important industrial process that has found application in sheet metal forming in aerospace and automotive industries. The ability to form complex shapes reduces overall manufacturing cost by reducing the total number of tool and parts counts and consequently the number of forming and assembly operations. To maintain superplastic characteristics of materials under SPF, forming is to be carried out at the specific optimum strain rate. Models that describe the forming process with optimum strain rate, materials properties, and die geometry as input, and the pressure-time and thickness-profile as output are essential not only for sucessful forming, but also for the overall economy of SPF.
The generalized cup equation can be specialized to a cone, dome etc. The uniform thinning assumption is applied in our SPF model.
Back to Ping Dang's Home Page