Material Flow Control and Optimization in High‐Pressure Sheet Metal Forming by Active‐Elastic Tools

High‐pressure forming of metal sheets is an innovative forming technology for the production of complex components and offers high potentials to improve the properties and qualities of sheet metal parts. This report describes investigations of a newly developed active‐elastic tool system referred to as ACTEC system. Unlike the use of a comparable semi‐rigid tool system, the ACTEC system shows improvements with respect to the material flow in the flange area and reduced sheet thinning in critical corner regions of the workpiece. In addition, the clamping forces respectively sealing forces necessary to avoid leakage in the tool system during the forming process can be reduced. Moreover, the specific design of the ACTEC‐system as well as current experimental examinations are presented and discussed.