Roboforming
Cristina Garza Lasierra
Roboforming provides a thorough insight into the implementation of a novel manufacturing technique, Robotic Incremental Sheet Forming (RISF) to explore the extent to which local plastic deformations change the material behaviour of thin metal sheets to enhance its structural performance under specific loads.
The concept of incremental forming refers to a gradually localised plastic deformation to generate a 3D geometry form into a 2D metal sheet, directly from design data. The project develops a digital parametric workflow, which combines the different stages of digital fabrication – from design, analysis and toolpath algorithm to generate the required design data to the final manufacturing of the metal component, in order to provide the designer with full control over the fabrication process.
The computational logic proposes a materially informed production process where an initial finite element analysis informs the geometric design of the formed patterns in order to increase the structural integrity of the thin metal sheets. The interweaving of this innovative manufacturing technique with digital software is aimed for a mass-customided production of variable and bespoke metal components to realize the contemporary aesthetics, which are in search of complex free-form designs.
