V-bending of Sheet Metal with a Polymer Die by Selective Laser Sintering Technology

Abstract

This article aims to experiment with a polymer die through the additive manufacturing process in the V-bending of sheet metal while comparing the quality of the bent part with the metal die. The polymer die was made from powder polyamide 12, which uses a selective laser sintering technology. The die was designed with a bend angle of 90 degrees and a punch corner radius and a die corner radius of 3 and 4 mm, respectively. The experiment was performed by bending a 1 mm thick A5052-H32 grade aluminum alloy with an initial blank size of 20 x 100 mm. The bending defined the die clearance as equal to the initial workpiece thickness. From the experiments, it was found that springback occurred with the workpieces after bending with both the metal and polymer dies. The workpieces that were bent by a polymer die had a higher quantity of springback than the workpieces that were bent by a metal die by an average of 2.59 degrees. However, the problem with bending aluminum alloy sheets with a metal die was that the die scratched the workpiece surface after bending, while no such problem was found on the workpiece that was bent with a polymer die.