An exploratory study for analyzing the energy savings obtainable by reshaping processes of sheet metal based components

Abstract Producing materials causes about 25% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Reshaping could be one of the most efficient strategy to foster material reuse and lower the environmental impact due to material production. Sheet metal forming processes can be applied to reshape sheet metal based component. This research field is still almost unexplored and the actual environmental impact saving potential has not been quantified. The present paper aims at starting to cover this research gap, a modeling effort to quantify the environmental impact saving of reshaping is proposed. Primary energy demand for conventional recycling and reshaping are quantified and compared. Primary energy savings…

A gradient-based decomposition approach to optimize pressure path and counterpunch action in Y-shaped tube hydroforming operations

International audience; In tube hydroforming, the concurrent actions of pressurized fluid and mechanical feeding allows obtaining tube shapes characterized by complex geometries such as different diameters sections and/or bulged zones. Main process parameters are material feeding history (i.e., the punches velocity history), internal pressure path during the process, and (in T- or Y-shaped tube hydroforming) counterpunch action. What is crucial, in such processes, is the proper design of operative parameters aimed to avoid defects (for instance underfilling or ductile fractures). Actually, the design of tube hydroforming operations is mainly aimed to prevent bursting or buckling occurrence …

Analysis of Energy Efficiency of Different Setups Able to Perform Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) Processes

Abstract Production processes, as used for discrete part manufacturing, are responsible for a substantial part of the environmental impact of products, but are still poorly documented in terms of environmental impact. The present paper proposes an energy analysis of single point incremental forming processes (SPIF). The electrical energy consumption of two different setups have been considered and compared. In particular the power demand of one of the most used machine tools architecture able to perform SPIF process, namely a CNC milling machine, has been measured. The obtained results have been compared with the ones obtained for an innovative high speed incremental forming processes perfo…

Energy and Resource efficient Forming Processes

Life cycle energy and CO2 emissions analysis of food packaging: an insight into the methodology from an Italian perspective

Packaging is strictly connected to environmental issues as it is a product characterised by high material consumption rate; it is often transported over long distances and has a short life. Providing environmental analysis is, therefore, urgent to identify energy and resources efficient solutions. The paper, taking advantage of a real case study, presents a life cycle-based comparative analysis among three different food packaging systems. The paper compares the life cycle of tin steel, polypropylene and glass-based packaging of an Italian preserves producer. The analysis leads to the conclusion that, for the baseline scenario, polypropylene packaging represents the greenest solution, where…

Numerical and Experimental Investigation on Hot Impression Die Forging: Flash Design Optimisation

In forging processes, several parameters have a great influence on the quality of the final product: complexity of the product geometry, lubricating conditions, temperature, preform shape. The main objective of a forging design process is to ensure an adequate material flow aimed to obtain a defect free component minimizing material losses, forging loads and tool wear. In this paper, the problem of optimising the flash geometry in hot forging is studied with particular reference to flash thickness and flash–land width. The main goals to be pursued concern the minimization of the flash volume (i.e. the surplus of material necessary to fill the die cavity), with the aim to reduce material los…

On the Effectiveness of SPIF Process to Re-Form End-of-Life Components as Compared to Conventional Forming Approach

Manufacturing processes have a significant impact on global energy consumptions. The recovery of materials and functions for the implementation of the Circular Economy principle needs to be focused on either, by utilizing new techniques or the rethinking of old processes to rework End-of-life (EoL) components. Previous researches have shown Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) process as a good alternate for sheet metal EoL components reuse by their reshaping. In this article, the authors aim to study the effectiveness of the SIPF processes by comparing its reshaping performance with other, more conventional forming processes. An initial deep drawing process was performed to imitate alum…

An optimization procedure for the friction stir welding FEM model of corner fillet joints

Friction stir welding (FSW) is an energy efficient and environmentally "friendly" (no fumes, noise, or sparks) welding process, during which the sheets are welded together in a solid-state joining process. FSW is mature for simple configurations but a significant lack of knowledge is found when dealing with different designs such as T-sections, box sections and corner welds. Although the latter joint morphology has traditionally been considered unfeasible for the process, it seems to have a great potential to be used also for T-joint configurations, a recurrent design pattern in transport applications. A specific tool has been developed and a set of experimental welds has been produced with…

Environmental comparison between a hot extrusion process and conventional machining processes through a Life Cycle Assessment approach

Nowadays manufacturing technologies have to be evaluated not only for the technical features they can provide to products, but also considering the environmental perspective as well. As long as the technological feasibility of a given process is guaranteed, processes minimizing resources and energy consumption have to be selected for manufacturing. With respect to this topic, the research studies in the domain of metal processing technologies predominantly focus on conventional material removal processes as milling and turning. Despite some exceptions, many other non-machining technologies, such as metal forming processes, are still not well documented in terms of their energy and resource …

Internal pressure and material feeding optimisation in tube hydroforming

Optimisation of a tube hydroforming process by gradient techniques

A gradient based technique for costs minimisation in impression die forging

A sustainability point of view on sheet metal forming operations: material wasting and energy consumption in incremental forming and stamping processes

Abstract Sustainability and sustainable production is nowadays a wide research field due the urgency of reducing environmental burdens of industrial production. Sustainable manufacturing issues are widely investigated too. In particular, due to the relevance such issues assume for automotive and aeronautical industry, the investigation of sheet metal forming processes sustainability is worth studying and, within this research fields, a certain lack of knowledge is still present. Many studies have been presented concerning the evaluation and reduction of environmental burdens in manufacturing. In this paper, the authors focus on sheet metal forming and aim to investigate both the efficient u…

A Comparison between Three Meta-Modeling Optimization Approaches to Design a Tube Hydroforming Process

Computer aided procedures to design and optimize forming processes have become crucial research topics as the industrial interest in cost and time reduction has been increasing. A standalone numerical simulation approach could make the design too time consuming while meta-modeling techniques enables faster approximation of the investigated phenomena, reducing the simulation time. Many researchers are, nowadays, facing such research challenge by using various approaches. Response surface method (RSM) is probably the most known one, since its effectiveness was demonstrated in the past years. The effectiveness of RSM depends both on the definition of the Design of Experiments (DoE) and the acc…

Life Cycle Assessment of aluminum alloys chips recycling through single and multi-step Friction Stir Consolidation processes

Manufacturing scientists have to find new processes enabling energy and resource efficient circular economy strategies. Solid state recycling processes have proved to be environmentally friendly alternatives to recycle aluminum alloys process scraps like chips. In this paper the environmental characterization of a solid state recycling process named Friction Stir Consolidation (FSC) is presented. A full Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) comparative analysis is developed: the environmental performance of new and different variants of FSC processes and remelting based routes are quantified and compared to one another. Also, different scenarios are analysed to provide guidelines for the correct impl…

An economical model for investment decisions in flexible manufacturing processes: An application to sheet metal forming operations

Energy efficiency analysis in Incremental Sheet Forming operations

In literature, manufacturing processes have been studied with different approaches, but a lack in terms of their environmental impact and energy required is still present. The aim of this paper is to compute some energy efficiency analysis on a specific manufacturing process. More in detail, the attention will be focused on the Incremental Sheet Forming process in order to evaluate the required energy and how it changes for changing process conditions. Accordingly, a wide experimental investigation has been executed taking into account different process parameters (i.e. tool depth step, punch diameter, wall inclination angle and sheet thickness). The total energy consumption has been monito…

A Pareto optimal design approach for simultaneous control of thinning and springback in stamping processes

One of the most relevant research issues in automotive field is focused on the reduction of stamped parts weight also increasing their strength. In this way, a strong research effort is developed on high strength steels which are widely utilized and they require a proper springback control. Springback reduction in sheet metal forming is a typical goal to be pursued which is conflicting with thinning reduction for instance. Thus, such problems can be considered as multi-objective ones characterized by conflicting objectives. What is more, nowadays, a great interest would be focused on the availability of a cluster of possible optimal solutions instead of a single one, particularly in an indu…

A comparison between three meta-modeling optimization approaches to design a tube hydroforming process

An Intelligent Tool to Predict Fracture in Sheet Metal Forming Operations

One of the main issues in sheet metal forming operations design is the determination of formability limits in order to prevent necking and fracture. In fact, the ability to predict fracture represents a powerful tool to improve the production quality in mechanical industry. Many researchers investigated the problem here addressed, mainly studying forming limit diagrams (FLD) or developing fracture criteria which are able to foresee fracture defects for different processes. In this paper, the author present some early results of a research project focused on the application of artificial intelligence (AI) for ductile fracture prediction in sheet metal forming operations. The main advantage o…

An overview of sustainability issues in manufacturing and building sector: a life cycle assessment approach

In the latest decades, the industrial consumption of materials and energy has undergone a growth which may exceed the limits of earth resources. Therefore, a strong awareness of the need to use materials and energy in a more efficient way has arisen. A wide research interest on sustainability is present in the modern technical literature: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology and Design for Environment (DFE) procedures are nowadays widely investigated in many research labs all over the world. In this context, this paper focuses on LCA approaches in two main fields: manufacturing and building sector. As the former is regarded, sustainability issues are crucial topics and the reduction of e…

Integration of gradient based and response surface methods to develop a cascade optimisation strategy for Y-shaped tube hydroforming process design

International audience; In the last years a strong research effort was produced in order to develop and design new forming technologies able to overcome the typical drawbacks of traditional forming operations. Among such new technologies, hydroforming proved to be one of the most promising. The design of tube hydroforming operations is mainly aimed to prevent bursting or buckling occurrence and such issues can be pursued only if a proper control of both material feeding history and internal pressure path during the process is performed.In this paper, a proper optimisation strategy was developed on Y-shaped tube hydroforming process which is characterized by a quite complex process mechanics…

An insight into the electrical energy demand of friction stir welding processes: the role of process parameters, material and machine tool architecture

The manufacturing sector accounts for a high share of global electrical energy consumption and CO 2 emissions, and therefore, the environmental impact of production processes is being more and more investigated. An analysis of power and energy consumption in friction stir welding processes can contribute to the characterization of the process from a new point of view and also provide useful information about the environmental impact of the process. An in-depth analysis of electrical energy demand of friction stir welding is here proposed. Different machine tool architectures, including an industrial dedicated machine, have been used to weld aluminum and steel sheets under different process …

A contribution on the optimization strategies based on moving least squares approximation for sheet metal forming design

Computer-aided procedures to design and optimize forming processes are, nowadays, crucial research topics since industrial interest in costs and times reduction is always increasing. Many researchers have faced this research challenge with various approaches. Response surface methods (RSM) are probably the most known approaches since they proved their effectiveness in the recent years. With a peculiar attention to sheet metal forming process design, RSM should offer the possibility to reduce the number of numerical simulations which in many cases means to reduce design times and complexity. Actually, the number of direct problems (FEM simulations) to be solved in order to reach good functio…

Numerical analysis for formability boundaries definition in sheet metal forming operations

Formability limits in sheet metal forming have been widely investigated through different approaches. The main aim of such approaches was to develop tools able to prevent or predict fracture occurrence in order to improve production quality. Forming limit diagrams (FLDs) and fracture criteria are probably the most utilised tools in this field; nevertheless, some drawbacks of such tools were demonstrated. In particular, forming limit curves are characterised by ineffective prediction capability if non linear deformation paths are taken into account. Moreover, the importance of stress paths was demonstrated in order to predict fracture, and forming limit stress diagrams are, nowadays, deeply …

On the Use of Artificial Neural Networks to Predict Ductile Fracture for Different Materials

The Role of re-design for Additive Manufacturing on the Process Environmental Performance

Abstract At present, economic and technological design criteria for products and processes should be matched with the minimization of environmental impact objectives. Manufacturing, material production, and product design are strictly connected stages. The choice of a production system over another could result in significant material and energy/resource savings, particularly if the component has been properly designed for manufacturing. In this scenario, Additive Manufacturing, which has been identified as a potential disruptive technology, gained an increasing interest for the creation of complex metal parts. The paper focuses on the tools, based on the holistic modelling of additive and …

Prediction of ductile fracture in bulk metal forming: an artificial neural networks based approach

On the Moving Least Squares (MLS) approximation effectiveness in a T-Shaped tube hydroforming design

Energy and CO2 life cycle inventory issues for aluminum based components: The case study of a high speed train window panel

Abstract As materials production and transport are two relevant sectors in terms of global environmental impact, over the last years environmental impact analyses (mainly life cycle based analyses) of material replacing strategies in means of transportation were developed. Life cycle approach allows to consider the light-weighing benefit without neglecting the environmental impact of material production. In the present research energy and CO2 emissions life cycle analysis of a real case study is presented. Industrial data, experimental measurements and literature analysis were used to develop the life cycle analysis of an aluminum window panel to be assembled on an Italian high speed train.…

Material Substitution for Automotive Applications: A Comparative Life Cycle Analysis

Lightweight materials have become an important strategy in the automotive industry to enable vehicle weight reduction and reduce fuel consumption. However, when developing specific strategies, the overall benefits of any material should be analyzed throughout its life cycle to comprehend energy/environmental differences that arise during its processing and its final use. A key example is aluminum which despite having great potential in the use phase requires large amounts of energy to process. This paper provides a comparison between aluminum and steel utilizing a life-cycle approach. This approach reveals the importance of incorporating a recycling strategy to leverage aluminum’s low-weigh…

Robust design of a sheet stamping process: approaches to control the inner process variability

The robustness investigation has become a crucial issue in the design of the sheet metal forming operations. The uncontrollable effects of some noise variables heavily influence the final process results, often evolving up to the failure of the process design. Therefore, tools able to handle such variability are worth developing with the aim to minimize the scattering of the investigated process performances despite of the process design. Moreover, the stamping process operations are usually characterized by objectives with conflicting behaviors and a set of compromise solutions, referred as Pareto front, is finally obtained instead of a global optimum. Therefore, the question becomes more …

Moving Least Squares Innovative Strategies For Sheet Forming Design

In the last years a great interest in optimization algorithms aimed to design forming processes was demonstrated by many researches. Proper design methodologies to reduce times and costs have to be developed mostly based on computer aided procedures. Response surface methods (RSM) proved their effectiveness in the recent years also for the application in sheet metal forming aiming to reduce the number of numerical simulations. Actually, the main drawback of such method is the number of direct problem to be solved in order to reach good function approximations. A very interesting aspect in RSM application regards the possibility to build response surfaces basing on moving least squares appro…

A Comparative Study of Mechanical and Microstructural Behavior for Metal Active Gas and Friction Stir Welded Micro-Alloyed Structural Steel

Manufacturing tiny components into gigantic structures seems unimaginable without welding connections, whether it is for materials, parts, structures, or equipment. In the recent competitive market scenario, manufacturing industries are desperately looking for a viable alternative to fusion-based conventional material joining technologies, to improve upon cost-effectiveness along with performance. The present investigation is to evaluate the performance of structural steel thick plate joints prepared by advanced solid-state friction stir welding (FSW) over conventional metal active gas welding (MAG). The FSW experiments were carried out with different tool designs and configurations. The ou…

Single Point Incremental Forming: analysis of sustainability of the process through an experimental approach

In literature, manufacturing processes have been studied with different approaches, but a lack of knowledge on the analysis of the energy required is still present. The aim of this paper is to carry out energy analysis on Single Point Incremental Forming process. Accordingly, a wide experimental investigation was executed by taking into account different process parameters (i.e. tool depth step, punch velocity and product shape). The total energy consumption was monitored during all the experiments and properly weighted with respect to the deformation energy, required to execute the process. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out to highlight the conditions which allow to save energy r…

A NEW PROGRESSIVE DESIGN METHODOLOGY FOR COMPLEX SHEET METAL STAMPING OPERATIONS: COUPLING SPATIALLY DIFFERENTIATED RESTRAINING FORCES APPROACH AND MULTIOBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION

The growing interest in sheet metal stamping processes, particularly in the automotive industry has led to three main issues in this field:*request of very complex shapes; *growing interest in springback control; *solution of multi-objective problems. These issues make a sheet metal stamping processes design very difficult and proper design methodologies to reduce times and costs are highly required. In this paper, a computer aided approach aiming to satisfy the mentioned issues is proposed. In particular, a progressive design approach based on the integration between numerical simulations, Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Pareto optimal solutions search techniques was applied in orde…

Tecniche di ottimizzazione multi-obiettivo e metodologie di supporto alle decisioni per la progettazione di processi di stampaggio di lamiere

An energy efficiency analysis of Single Point Incremental Forming as an Approach for Sheet Metal Based Component Reuse

Abstract Producing materials causes about 25% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Metals play a significant role, steel and aluminum account for 24% and 3% of worldwide material related emissions respectively. Fostering resources efficiency strategies in the field of sheet components could lead to a significant environmental impact reduction. Reshaping could be one of the most efficient strategy to foster material reuse and lower the environmental impact due to material production. Specifically, for aluminum recycling, the overall energy efficiency of conventional route is very low and, more importantly, permanent material losses occur during re-melting because of oxidation. The present pap…

On the sustainability evaluation in sheet metal forming processes

In sheet metal forming processes there is still a lack of knowledge in the field of environmental sustainability mainly due to the need of a proper modeling of issues and factors to be taken into account. Such topic is, nowadays, a urgent and remarkable issue in manufacturing and the main concerns are related to more efficient use of materials and energy. What is more, the estimation of environmental burdens of forming technologies is very complex to be accomplished since it is essentially process-dependent. This means that when comparing, for instance, a traditional forming process with an innovative one, there are some peculiar aspects to be considered; actually, processes can be rather d…

INTERNAL PRESSURE AND COUNTERPUNCH ACTION DESIGN IN Y-SHAPED TUBE HYDROFORMING PROCESSES: A MULTI OBJECTIVE OPTIMISATION APPROACH

In sheet metal forming most of the problems are multi-objective problems, generally characterised by conflicting objectives. A classical approach to investigate such kind of problems is focused on a combination of multiple objectives into a unique objective function to be optimised. Actually, in metal forming processes optimisation two main phases have to be developed in order to reach an optimal solution: the former is the modelling phase (definition of the design variables and objective function) and the latter concerns the computational aspect (numerical simulations or experiment to be developed). In this paper, an integration between numerical simulations, response surface methodology a…

Fracture Prediction in sheet metal forming operations: an artificial neural networks based approach

Optimal Design of Tube Hydroforming Processes: a Fuzzy Logic Based Approach

A gradient based approach for the design of the shape of the blank in deep drawing of rectangualr boxes

Optimisation strategies to determine process parameters in tube hydroforming

Influence of Material-Related Aspects of Additive and Subtractive Ti-6Al-4V Manufacturing on Energy Demand and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Summary The additive manufacturing of metal parts represents a promising process that could be used alongside traditional manufacturing methods. The research scenario in this field is still largely unexplored, as far as the technological solutions adopted to integrate different processes are concerned and in terms of environmental and economic impact assessment. In this article, an electron beam melting (EBM) process and a machining process have been analyzed and compared using a cradle-to-grave life cycle–based approach. The production of components made of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy has been assumed as a case study. The proposed methodology is able to account for all of the main factors of influ…

Tuning Decision Support Toolsfor Environmentally Friendly Manufacturing Approach Selection

Awareness about the environmental performance of manufacturing approaches has arisen. Comparative analyses of different manufacturing approaches as well as decision support methods should be developed in the field of metal shaping processes. The present paper aims at tuning a decision support tool for identifying when mass conserving approaches (forming based) are actually preferable over machining processes for manufacturing aluminum based components. A full LCA is developed for comparing the environmental performance of forming and machining approaches as the batch size and geometry complexity hang. The impact of the used metric on the comparative results is analyzed. Results reveal that …

Deep Drawing Process Design: A Multi Objective Optimization Approach

In sheet metal forming most of the problems are multi objective problems, generally characterized by conflicting objectives. The definition of proper parameters aimed to prevent both wrinkles and fracture is a typical example of an optimization problem in sheet metal forming characterized by conflicting goals. What is more, nowadays, a great interest would be focused on the availability of a cluster of possible optimal solutions instead of a single one, particularly in an industrial environment. Thus, the design parameters calibration, accomplishing all the objectives, is difficult and sometimes unsuccessful. In order to overcome this drawback a multi-objectives optimization procedure based…

On the Sustainability Evaluation in Sheet Metal Forming Processes

In sheet metal forming processes there is still a lack of knowledge in the field of environmental sustainability mainly due to the need of a proper modeling of issues and factors to be taken into account. Such topic is, nowadays, a urgent and remarkable issue in manufacturing and the main concerns are related to more efficient use of materials and energy. What is more, the estimation of environmental burdens of forming technologies is very complex to be accomplished since it is essentially process-dependent. This means that when comparing, for instance, a traditional forming process with an innovative one, there are some peculiar aspects to be considered; actually, processes can be rather d…

Statistical tools and artificial intelligence approaches to predict fracture in bulk metal forming

A sensitivity analysis on artificial neural networks fracture predictions in sheet metal forming operations

Study of the implementation of SPIF as a Reshaping strategy in terms of formability and accuracy performance

The adaption of circular economy strategies has become increasingly necessary in current times. Researches need to be addressed on finding alternative processes or the modification of the existing processes in order to reprocess End-of-Life (EoL) components and consequently recover both materials and their functions. This research paper focuses on the use of single point incremental forming (SPIF) process for the Reshaping of sheet metal EoL components. Uniaxial and biaxial pre-straining was performed on AA5754 sheets to imitate an end-of-life component, and SPIF operations were carried out so as to obtain reshaped components. In previous works, the authors have proven the technical feasibi…

Analysis of Electrical Energy Demands in Friction Stir Welding of Aluminum Alloys

Abstract Manufacturing processes, as used for discrete part manufacturing, are responsible for a substantial part of the environmental impact of products. Despite that, most of metalworking processes are still poorly documented in terms of environmental footprint. To be more specific, the scientific research has well covered conventional machining processes, concerning the other processes there is a lack of knowledge in terms of environmental load characterization instead. The present paper aims to contribute to fill this knowledge gap and an energetic analysis of Friction Stir welding (FSW) is presented. Following the CO2PE! methodological approach, power studies and a preliminary time stu…

A cost model for the Friction Stir Welding process

Optimization methods for complex sheet metal stamping computer aided engineering

Nowadays, sheet metal stamping processes design is not a trivial task due to the complex issues to be taken into account (complex shapes forming, conflicting design goals and so on). Therefore, proper design methodologies to reduce times and costs have to be developed mostly based on computer aided procedures. In this paper, a computer aided approach is proposed with the aim to offer a methodology able to solve very complex sheet metal stamping processes, in particular a progressive design approach based on the integration between numerical simulations and optimization methodologies is presented. In particular, Response Surface Method, Moving Least Squares approximation and Pareto optimal s…

Influence of Material-Related Aspectsof Additive and Subtractive Ti-6Al-4VManufacturing on Energy Demandand Carbon Dioxide Emissions

The additive manufacturing of metal parts represents a promising process that could beused alongside traditional manufacturing methods. The research scenario in this field isstill largely unexplored, as far as the technological solutions adopted to integrate differentprocesses are concerned and in terms of environmental and economic impact assessment.In this article, an electron beam melting (EBM) process and a machining process have beenanalyzed and compared using a cradle-to-grave life cycle–based approach. The productionof components made of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy has been assumed as a case study. Theproposed methodology is able to account for all of the main factors of influence on energydem…

On the use of artificial intelligence tools for fracture forecast in cold forming operations

Abstract The design of cold forming processes requires the availability of a procedure able to deal with the prevention of ductile fracture. In fact, the ability to predict fracture represents a powerful tool to improve the production quality in mechanical industry. In this paper, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are applied to ductile fracture prediction in cold forming operations. The main advantage of the application of AI tools and in particular, of artificial neural networks (ANN), is the possibility to obtain a predictive tool with a wide applicability. The prediction results obtained in this paper fully demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed approach.

Deep drawing process parameter design: a multi objective optimization approach

Development of an artificial neural network for defects prediction in metal forming

Prevedere la frattura duttile nello stampaggio a freddo

A methodology for evaluating the influence of batch size and part geometry on the environmental performance of machining and forming processes

Metallic material processing plays a significant role in terms of global environmental impact. As a result, energy- and resource-efficient strategies in the metal shaping technology domain need to be identified urgently. Recently, the scientific world has been paying more and more attention to the environmental impact analysis of manufacturing processes. Despite this increased attention, the state of the art in the domain of environmental impact analysis of metal shaping processes is still characterized by gaps in knowledge and in methodologies. In particular, metal forming processes are still not well documented, in terms of their environmental impact, and there is a lack of systematic and…

Influence of material properties variability on springback and thinning in sheet stamping processes: a stochastic analysis

A very critical issue for stamping operations is the improvement of process robustness. The reliability of final results, in fact, strongly depends on the intrinsic variability due to stochastic behavior of many parameters, namely, operative ones and material properties. A given process performance may undergo a variation around the value which would be obtained neglecting stochastic behaviors of the operative or material parameters (i.e., considering a deterministic parameters behavior). Such variation introduces a significant source of uncertainty within the process design: a possible consequence may be the rejection of some stamped parts. In this paper, reliability analyses aimed to evid…

Environmental Comparison between a Hot Extrusion Process and Conventional Machining Processes through a Life Cycle Assessment Approach

Nowadays manufacturing technologies have to be evaluated not only for the technical features they can provide to products, but also considering the environmental perspective as well. As long as the technological feasibility of a given process is guaranteed, processes minimizing resources and energy consumption have to be selected for manufacturing. With respect to this topic, the research studies in the domain of metal processing technologies predominantly focus on conventional material removal processes as milling and turning. Despite some exceptions, many other non-machining technologies, such as metal forming processes, are still not well documented in terms of their energy and resource …

Subtractive versus mass conserving metal shaping technologies: an environmental impact comparison

The scientific studies in the domain of environmental sustainability of metal processing technologies predominantly focus on conventional material removal processes, as milling and turning. Despite some exceptions, many other non-machining technologies, such as metal forming processes, are still not well documented in terms of their energy and resource efficiency. Moreover, to properly evaluate the environmental impact of a given process, a standing-alone approach is no longer sufficient. In order to offer a valuable contribution in the domain of metal shaping sustainability, the present paper proposes a thorough methodology entailing to compare, from the environmental point of view, two tr…

On the impact of recycling strategies on energy demand and CO2 emissions when manufacturing Al-based components

Abstract The industrial world is facing the challenge of reducing emissions by means of energy- and resource-efficient manufacturing strategies. In some cases, the exerted emissions and the energy demands related to conventional manufacturing processes are not as intensive as those required to extract and produce the raw materials of which the workpieces are made. Therefore, the consciousness of the impact of material usage and the eco-informed choice of the end-of-life scenarios are both needed in view of sustainable development. Aim of this paper is to offer a contribution to a better understanding of the environmental impact of forming and machining processes, for the production of Al-ba…