Variable blankholder force in U-shaped part forming for eliminating springback error

Springback is the main defect in U-shaped part forming, which can badly affect the shape of a part. Applying reasonable variable blankholder force in the forming process is one of the useful methods to solve this problem, but determination of the curve of blankholder force vs. punch displacement is still difficult. A method is advanced in this paper to control the forming process of a U-shaped part, by which a reasonable blankholder force curve can be easily gained. Comparing with constant blankholder force, higher forming quality can be obtained in both avoiding cracking and improving dimension accuracy. The benchmarks of the 2D draw bending problem in NUMISHEET’93 has been utilized to validate the method by FEM, and good results of springback elimination have been obtained.