The flexible rolling process of three-dimensional curved parts using an auxiliary plate based on rigid arc-shaped rollers

The 3D curved part rolling method based on the rigid arc-shaped rollers is a novel sheet metal rolling process to rapidly manufacture 3D surface parts for various parameters. The flow of material inside the sheet metal is complicated during the cold rolling forming process of the 3D curved parts, whose quality of products is sensitive to process parameters. The work analyzed the friction force for the sheet metal inside the roll gap during rolling as well as the reason for the instability of the forming process. The instability of the forming process significantly affected the forming accuracy of curved parts. Therefore, the method of using an auxiliary plate was proposed to improve the stability of the rolling process. The finite element numerical simulation models were established for two rolling processes, with and without the auxiliary plate, and the forming errors of the two processes were computed. The numerical simulation results showed that the rolling process with the auxiliary plate can obtain a more stable rolling process, and the forming error of formed curved parts was smaller. The reliability of the numerical simulation results was verified through experiments.