Development of a Flexible Incremental Forging Process to Manufacture Asymmetric Shafts

비대칭 축류형 제품의 점진성형공정 개발

Shafts having asymmetry or odd number of symmetry in the cross-section can not be simply manufactured by conventional incremental radial forging. In order to manufacture such shafts, the new concept of incremental forging with one punch and a flexible fixture is developed by suggesting a flexible fixture, instead of two opposed punches used in radial forging, so that the flexible fixture only supports the workpiece while the punch is moving during forming. A new flexible fixture is designed using the steel shots and vacuum technology. An equilateral triangular cross-section is selected as the sample shape to be manufactured by the proposed manufacturing method. The desired triangular cross-sectional shaft is manufactured with the errors of $3.0\%$.