Physical-Technical Institute offers technology and equipment for high-velocity sheet-metal forming. The main advantages are high efficiency, convenient and safe energy source, and the ability to control the shock wave shape. The institute is looking for industrial partners or R&D organizations for manufacturing agreements, commercial agreements with technical assistance, or research cooperation agreement.

Physical-Technical Institute of the NAS of Belarus specializing in materials processing offers technology and equipment for high-velocity sheet-metal forming.

Present designs require materials with specific properties. With the increasing strength and hardness of the metals that are being formed the conventional stamping becoming substantially more difficult to apply. Therefore to process hard forming materials the high-velocity forming (HVF) methods are used (e.g., explosive forming, magnetic pulse forming, electro-hydraulic forming).

In the offered technology (impact hydroforming) the pressure pulse is created by an air-driven head hitting the closed volume of a liquid or elastic medium that fills the forming chamber. The developed pneumatic system accelerates head up to 50-100 m/s and the created pressure pulse is 100-300 MPa.

The main characteristic of the method and equipment:
* High uniformity and controllability of applied pressure
* Pressure pulse duration: 0.01-1 millisecond
* Processed materials: aluminum alloys, carbon, and stainless steel, titanium, brass, copper, niobium, etc.
* Blank thickness: 0.3-3 mm
* One-sided die (it is possible to process blanks of different thickness using the same die), as the stamping is done by a liquid (water, oil) or polyurethane plate
* Resulting roughness is not worse than that of a blank
* Productivity: 60-100 pieces/hour
* Press footprint: 2.5 x 2.5 m
* Energy source: compressed air 0.63 MPa

The method is especially useful for complex parts from hard forming materials (high-temperature alloys, titanium alloys, tungsten alloys) for example in the aerospace industry, as well as for the processing of ultra-pure metals since there is no pollution of blank with tooling particles.

The institute is looking for industrial partners interested in:
* small-batch wide range production using the available equipment under manufacturing agreement (the institute is ready to produce small batches of parts on its own equipment according to the customer's drawings),
* buying the equipment under a commercial agreement with technical assistance (the institute offers to the partner: equipment in accordance with the requirements of the customer, documentation, technical consultancy, assistance with installation, maintenance, and machine repair).

Industrial partner or R&D organization interested in improving or adapting the technology to the specific needs under a research cooperation agreement.

The efficiency of the impact hydroforming equipment is about 40% compared to other high-velocity forming methods (20-30%), such as explosive forming, magnetic pulse forming, electro-hydraulic forming.

The pneumatic system used in the equipment is more convenient and safe than the capacitors of magnetic forming or electrical-hydraulic forming.

The Institute develops technologies and equipment for high-velocity sheet-metal forming, processing of materials using a laser, ion, and electron beams, plasma flows, high pressures, and electromagnetic fields. Also develops new multifunctional materials and coatings with improved characteristics for the machine-building industry, toolmaking, microelectronics, medicine, and others.

Type of partner sought: company or R&D organization.

Industrial partners for:
* small-batch wide range production using the available equipment under manufacturing agreement,
* buying the equipment under a commercial agreement with technical assistance.

Industrial partner or R&D organization interested in improving or adapting the technology to the specific needs under a research cooperation agreement.