TY - JOUR
T1 - From art to part
T2 - Learning from the traditional smith in developing flexible sheet metal forming processes
AU - Bowen, Daniel T.
AU - Russo, Iacopo M.
AU - Cleaver, Christopher J.
AU - Allwood, Julian M.
AU - Loukaides, Evripides G.
N1 - Funding Information:
DTB is funded by an EPSRC studentship while both DTB and EGL benefited from a Faculty of Engineering & Design starter fund generously provided by the University of Bath. The authors are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and helpful suggestions.
PY - 2022/1/31
Y1 - 2022/1/31
N2 - The traditional metal smith has the remarkable capability to form a variety of part shapes from flat sheets using only a few universal tools. Such versatility is increasingly appealing to manufacturers who now seek to diversify part catalogues and reduce tooling costs. Despite this utility, the laborious, manual nature of these traditional techniques preclude them from meeting modern-day, high-volume demand. However, some techniques have served as starting points for the development of new flexible metal forming processes, either through creating new processes that closely replicate the traditional techniques or by automating the manual process. Here, we look closely at some of the techniques used by the traditional smith to form sheets and review automated adaptations of these processes. We find that decision-making elements of these adapted processes are not yet as capable as their manual counterparts, suggesting there is still a lot we can learn from the traditional smith. As such, we look both within and beyond the domain of metal forming at the technologies and the methods that can be used to capture the skilled actions of the smith and how the resulting data can be used to enhance the design and operation of mechanised variants.
AB - The traditional metal smith has the remarkable capability to form a variety of part shapes from flat sheets using only a few universal tools. Such versatility is increasingly appealing to manufacturers who now seek to diversify part catalogues and reduce tooling costs. Despite this utility, the laborious, manual nature of these traditional techniques preclude them from meeting modern-day, high-volume demand. However, some techniques have served as starting points for the development of new flexible metal forming processes, either through creating new processes that closely replicate the traditional techniques or by automating the manual process. Here, we look closely at some of the techniques used by the traditional smith to form sheets and review automated adaptations of these processes. We find that decision-making elements of these adapted processes are not yet as capable as their manual counterparts, suggesting there is still a lot we can learn from the traditional smith. As such, we look both within and beyond the domain of metal forming at the technologies and the methods that can be used to capture the skilled actions of the smith and how the resulting data can be used to enhance the design and operation of mechanised variants.
KW - Automation
KW - Craft
KW - Flexible manufacturing
KW - Metal forming
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85113282520&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2021.117337
DO - 10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2021.117337
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85113282520
SN - 0924-0136
VL - 299
JO - Journal of Materials Processing Technology
JF - Journal of Materials Processing Technology
M1 - 117337
ER -