A study of friction in microfoming using ring compression tests and finite n element analysis

Microforming processes have recently attracted considerable attention from industry and academia since they enable the production of microscale parts using various materials at a high production rate, minimize material loss, and provide parts with excellent mechanical properties. However, for successful development and applications of the microforming process it is critical to take the tribological size effect into consideration because previous studies have shown that traditional friction models for macroscale forming generate significantly erroneous results in the case of microforming. In this paper, we performed scaled ring compression experiments to investigate the tribological size effect of aluminum and brass materials in microforming. The sensitivity of the interfacial friction to the deformation characteristics of the ring was quantitatively analyzed by the finite element analysis. In addition, a friction model based on slip line field and upper boundary techniques was used to theoretically explain the friction mechanism in microforming.