High Pressure Warm Forming of Titanium

The Flexform^™ High Pressure Warm Forming process is a new technology that can replace or complement existing Titanium forming methods, such as hot-forming, hot stamping, super plastic forming, SPF, and hot gas forming.

50% reduction in production costs
Protection gas may be eliminated, due to the relatively low temperature process. Time for part cleaning after processing is reduced to a minimum, and the need for forming tool maintenance is also greatly reduced due to galling from the titanium blanks. Finally the energy consumption is also greatly reduced, compared to traditional hot forming methods.

Five times increased throughput
The HPWF process, with less than 5 minutes cycle time, including heating, loading, forming and unloading, can handle multiple tools in one and the same forming cycle, while allowing for very rapid tool changes. Forming at relatively low temperatures enables quick cooling. The new Flexform^™ HPWF process has a production capacity of some five times traditional hot-forming processes.

Forming repeatability
The flexibility of the process allows for springback compensation in the die design, hence compensation for material spring back can be implemented into the process, allowing final shape parts to come directly from the process.