Explosive Forming Sheet Metal

Formability has been defined as the ability of a sheet metal to be deformed by a specific sheet metal forming process from its original shape to a defined shape without failure.

Explosive forming sheet metal.

High energy rate forming is the forming of sheet metal by a high energy surge delivered over a very short time. A a aerospace forming and fabrication corp. Explosive forming is a metalworking technique in which an explosive charge is used instead of a punch or press. Detonation of the explosive forces the workpiece to assume the shape of the tool.

Specializing in hand forming and check straightening bringing over 75 years of accumulated management forming and fabrication experience in the aerospace industry. Hamilton metalcraft is a precision sheet metal fabricator and problem solver. Since the forming of the metal occurs so quickly desirable materials for herf will be ductile at high deformation speeds. In normal explosive forming operations the major characteristics of the work metal that determine formability are ductility and toughness.

The underwater shock wave travels downstream and then it hits the metal plate to be formed. One advantage of explosive forming is the ability to use the finished metal in an annealed treated condition before the forming operation. An explosive releases its energy instantly so that an extremely high pressure with short duration occurs at the instance of explosion. Nevertheless the working done by the shock wave can drastically change the physical properties of the metal including work hardening or work softening.

Explosive forming is an ideal process for producing low volumes of very large metal part with low tooling costs. Sometimes called explosive hydroforming a workpiece and explosive is placed in a tank of water. It can be used on materials for which a press setup would be prohibitively large or require an unreasonably high pressure and is generally much cheaper than building a large enough and sufficiently high pressure press. Explosives can deliver a huge amount of power.

On the other hand it is unavoidably an individual job production process producing one product at a time and with a long setup time.