Development of a Flexibly-reconfigurable Roll Forming Apparatus for Curved Surface Forming

Sheet metals are often required to be formed into three dimensional curved shapes for use as skin structures. As a result various sheet metal forming methods, such as press die forming, stretch forming, and line heating have been used over the years in industrial production lines. Although they are extensively used in industry, these methods are not suitable for small quantity batch productions. Studies have been conducted to improve or replace these methods with plausible flexible forming technologies. As a part of these studies, we developed a new and more efficient forming device named flexibly-reconfigurable roll forming (FRRF). The current study presents the process development and experimental verification for the applicability of this device. To improve the efficiency of the FRRF apparatus, several hardware components were invented and a suitable operating program was developed using MFC of visual C++. The ways to make the FRRF apparatus fully functional are also described. Sheet metal was formed into three dimensional shapes using the FRRF apparatus and the final products are presented as evidence for the applicability of the developed device.