Temperature influence on Single Point Incremental Forming of PVC parts

Incremental sheet forming techniques, such as Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF), have an appealing potential in rapid prototyping and processing low volume plastic sheet products. Fitting a conventional CNC milling machine to accomplish SPIF is easy and cheap: just design and assembly a rigid frame and manufacture a semi-spherical end punch. Nevertheless, polymeric SPIF parts have a lack of dimensional accuracy and surface quality because of springback and friction effects. This experimental work shows the influence of temperature and force on final dimension and surface finishing of PVC SPIF specimens. In order to produce a temperature and force variation, the following parameters are modified: punch material, spindle rotational speed and sense.