Influence of interfacial properties on incremental forming of Al-CFRP composite laminates

Incremental forming technology is an advanced, flexible manufacturing process that forms components without the need of mold, offering unique advantages in trial production, rapid prototyping, and small batch manufacturing of complex-shaped components. However, efficient fabrication of Al-CFRP composite laminates presents challenges due to the limited destructive strain characteristics of the carbon fiber layers and the complexity of their interfacial structure. It is crucial to explore the feasibility of producing Al-CFRP composite laminates using incremental forming technology and to examine the influence of interface friction properties on deformation behavior and forming defects. Various interfacial friction conditions are constructed by changing the forming temperature, focusing on the analysis of the forming defects and deformation laws of Al-CFRP composite laminates. The results demonstrated that. After the resin is softened by heating, the incremental forming of Al-CFRP composite laminates are feasible by the relative sliding between the fiber layer and the metal layer. When Al-CFRP composite laminates exhibit a large interfacial friction in a relatively low forming temperature range, the metal layer was easy to break first owing to the fiber bridging effect. Then, with the increase of temperature, the interface friction decrease significantly and the fracture of the metal layer was improved significantly, but the fiber layer was prone to fold. The fiber direction significantly affects the deformation behavior of the metal layer through interfacial stress transfer.