Fabricación rápida de prototipos para automoción mediante deformación incremental de chapa

Abstract

First papers relative to use of polymers inincremental forming of sheet are dated in 2008.Nowadays, only a reduced number of works havebeen published, and most of them are oriented tothe experimental validation of the process. Almost nowork is focused on the use of the technique in a realindustrial application.In this paper, it is explained the implementationof one of the incremental forming techniques forrapid prototyping of a plastic headlight reflector forautomotive industry. In the first sections of the paper,the incremental forming process applied to polymersis presented, as well as main parameters that governThe tools used to adapt a conventional CNCmachine-tool are described too. After the first tests,in the following sections, the methodology employedto manufacturing a headlight reflector, including theuse of a multi-stage strategy, is explained. Finally,the results of a dimensional comparison betweenthe prototype and the real model are shown, so thesuitability of the process is checked.