Development of springback tester and the effect of forming speed on the springback of four sheet metal bending processes

Abstract With the current increasing emphasis on issues of energy saving, emission reduction, driver and passenger safety in automotive industry, lightweight bodywork is an effective measure to reduce vehicle energy consumption. And also, high-strength bodywork structure can improve automobile safety performance because of its high impact absorption energy, and high fatigue resistance. In sheet metal forming, springback is a main defect with using high strength steel. Aiming to investigate sheet metal springback phenomenon for high-strength steel, a multi-funtional springback test machine is built. The testing machine can perform four types of springback tests: V-bend, U-bend, stretchbend and drawbend, and all these tests have been carried out to investgate the effect of springback factor in sheet metal forming processes for example forming speed. The research found that the springback angle of U-bend and drawbend increase with enlarging speed, however, V-bend and stretchbend show the opposite trend.