This article describes various bending methods: draw bending, compression bending, roll bending, stretch bending, and ram-and-press bending. It discusses the machines used for the bending of bars. These machines include devices and fixtures for manual bending, press brakes, conventional mechanical and hydraulic presses, horizontal bending machines, rotary benders, and bending presses. The article illustrates the tools used in bending and other bending process. It also tabulates the lubricants required for bending specific metals.

Aluminum and its alloys are among the more formable materials of commonly fabricated metals. This article discusses the formability, bendability, and springback of aluminum and its alloys. It describes the forming limit diagrams that illustrate the biaxial combinations of strain that can occur without splitting. The article reviews various bending methods, such as draw, compression, ram and press, roll, and stretch or tension bending. It describes the process variations of incremental sheet forming (ISF), such as single-point incremental forming, two-point incremental forming, and kinematic incremental sheet forming. The article concludes with a discussion on spinning, warm forming, and superplastic forming.

Press brakes are a common and versatile type of equipment for bending metal by delivering an accurate vertical force in a confined longitudinal area. This article begins with a discussion on the design, widening methods, and types of materials used in press brakes. It focuses on the two basic drive systems used in operating press brakes, namely, mechanical and hydraulic drive systems. The article also provides an outline on the tooling associated with press-brakes.

This article discusses the principles of the press-brake forming process and its applicability with an example. It describes the types of press brakes and examines some considerations, which help in the selection of machine. The article provides information on flattening dies, gooseneck punches, wiping dies, channel dies, arbor-type punches, box-forming dies, curling dies, beading dies, and cam-driven dies, with illustrations. It discusses the tool material selection for various operations. The article explains the procedures used for producing different shapes, including simple boxlike parts, panels, flanged parts, architectural columns, fully closed parts, and semicircular parts. It examines the effect of work metal variables on results in press-brake operations. The article also reviews stock tolerances, design, and condition of machines and tools, which help in obtaining good dimensional accuracy.

Forging machines use a wide variety of hammers, presses, and dies to produce products with the desired shape, size, and geometry. This article discusses the major types of hammers (gravity-drop, power-drop, high speed, and open-die forging), and presses (mechanical, hydraulic, screw-type, and multiple-ram). It further discusses the technologies used in the design of dies, terminology, and materials selection for dies for the most common hot-forging processes, particularly those using vertical presses, hammers, and horizontal forging machines. A brief section is included on computer-aided design in the forging industry. Additionally, the article reviews specific characteristics, process limitations, advantages, and disadvantages of the most common forging processes, namely hot upset forging, roll forging, radial forging, rotary forging, isothermal and hot-die forging, precision forging, and cold forging.

This article is a compilation of definitions of the terms related to sheet metal forming and fabrication.

This article is a comprehensive collection of terms related to metalworking operations that produce shapes from forging, extrusion, drawing, and rolling operations.

This article begins with a discussion on the factors considered in the selection of bending methods. It presents a detailed description of the types of bending method, machines and tools used in the bending and forming of tubing. The article provides an overview of bending tubing with and without a mandrel and hot bending. It concludes with a discussion on the bending of thin-wall tubes and lubrication for tube bending.

Bars, structural shapes, and long parts are straightened by bending, twisting, or stretching. This article describes the straightening of bars, shapes, and long parts by material displacement, heating, and presses. It explains the process of parallel-roll straightening, automatic press roll straightening, moving-insert straightening, parallel-rail straightening, and epicyclic straightening. The article concludes with a discussion on straightening in bar production.

This article discusses the significant factors in the selection of forging equipment for a particular process. It describes the characteristics of forging hydraulic presses, mechanical presses, screw presses, and hammers. The article discusses the significant characteristics of these machines that comprise all machine design and performance data, which are pertinent to the economic use of the machines, including the characteristics for load and energy, time-related characteristics, and characteristics for accuracy.

Hammers and high-energy-rate forging machines are classified as energy-restricted machines as they deform the workpiece by the kinetic energy of the hammer ram. This article provides information on gravity-drop hammers, power-drop hammers, die forger hammers, counterblow hammers, and computer-controlled hammers. It describes the three basic designs of high-energy-rate forging (HERF) machines: the ram and inner frame, two-ram, and controlled energy flow. The article reviews forging mechanical presses, hydraulic presses, drive presses, screw presses, and multiple-ram presses.

This article describes the presses that are mechanically or hydraulically powered and used for producing sheet, strip, and plate from sheet metal. It also presents the JIC standards for presses, compares the presses based on power source, details the selection criteria and provides information on the various drive systems and the auxiliary equipment. It describes the selection of die materials and lubricants for sheet metal forming and provides information on the lubrication mechanisms and selection with a list of lubricant types for forming of specific sheet materials of ferrous or nonferrous metals. The article reviews the various types of forming processes such as blanking, piercing, fine-edge blanking, press bending, press forming, forming by multiple-slide machines, deep drawing, stretch forming, spinning, rubber-pad forming, three-roll forming, contour roll forming, drop hammer forming, explosive forming, electromagnetic forming, and superplastic forming.

This article discusses the mechanics, surface preparation and principles of metal forming operations such as drawing, bending (draw bending, compression bending, roll bending, and stretch bending), spinning, and straightening of bars, tubes, wires, rods and structural shapes. The article also discusses the machines and tools, including dies and mandrels, and lubricants used for these metal forming operations.

Powder metallurgy compacting presses usually are mechanically or hydraulically driven, but they can incorporate a combination of mechanically, hydraulically, and pneumatically driven systems. This article provides a comparison of mechanical and hydraulic presses based on the cost, production rate, and machine overload protection. The article lists the classification of powder metallurgy parts based on complexity of shapes as suggested by the Metal Powder Industries Federation, such as Class I parts, Class II parts, Class III parts, and Class IV parts. It describes rigid tooling compaction and details the powder-fill ratio considerations for these classes. The article elaborates on the types of tooling systems and presses used for these classes. Some important factors and components used in designing a tool are also described. Finally, the article considers tool materials, including punches, core rods, and punch clamp rings.

This article reviews the selection and formability characteristics of steels, with an emphasis on low-carbon steels and some coverage on the forming of high-carbon steels. It describes the key factors that affect the formability of steels in terms of steelmaking practices, surface finishes, metal thicknesses, and alloying. The article explains the bending and forming operations with some examples. It also describes the formation of various shells, including doubly contoured shells, deep recessed shells, and deep circular shells.

This article briefly describes the nomenclature, alignment and geometrical considerations, and functional and application requirements of a die set. The die set consists of the shank, guide posts, guide bushings, the punch, and die holders. The article illustrates plate flatness and parallelism in the die set. The testing for abrasion, seizure, and endurance in the die set are discussed briefly. The article concludes with information on die-set recommendations.