Recent Developments and Trends in Sheet Metal Forming

Sheet metal forming (SMF) is one of the most popular technologies for obtaining finished products in almost every sector of industrial production, especially in the aircraft, automotive, food and home appliance industries. Parallel to the development of new forming techniques, numerical and empirical approaches are being developed to improve existing and develop new methods of sheet metal forming. Many innovative numerical algorithms, experimental methods and theoretical contributions have recently been proposed for SMF by researchers and business research centers. These methods are mainly focused on the improvement of the formability of materials, production of complex-shaped parts with good surface quality, speeding up of the production cycle, reduction in the number of operations and the environmental performance of manufacturing. This study is intended to summarize recent development trends in both the numerical and experimental fields of conventional deep-drawing, spinning, flexible-die forming, electromagnetic forming and computer-controlled forming methods like incremental sheet forming. The review is limited to the considerable changes that have occurred in the SMF sector in the last decade, with special attention given to the 2015–2020 period. The progress observed in the last decade in the area of SMF mainly concerns the development nonconventional methods of forming difficult-to-form lightweight materials for automotive and aircraft applications. In evaluating the ecological convenience of SMF processes, the tribological aspects have also become the subject of great attention.