Abstract:

Experimentation is an essential part of engineering technical degrees. The theoretical content taught must be complemented with a solid program of practicals to achieve a complete understanding and visualization, thus meeting the required competencies. However, this is not always easy to achieve due to technical limitations in the teaching facilities and a lack of resources. The area of manufacturing technologies is particularly relevant in this context, as it presents a high and necessary practical load but faces difficulties in covering all the content.

Among these contents, machining and casting processes have been the most commonly addressed due to their importance and greater accessibility to experimental equipment. However, forming processes represent another fundamental pillar in this area. These processes are characteristic of more specialized industries and require equipment with high technological requirements and elevated costs, making their implementation difficult in most teaching laboratories, especially in medium and small-sized engineering faculty.

This situation has led to forming processes being traditionally covered only theoretically, which can cause students to have problems understanding their characteristics and technological limitations. Therefore, this work proposes the design of a set of low-cost experimental tools that allow for the reproduction of most metal forming processes for use in practical sessions. At the same time, these developments are complemented by a computational approach that delves deeper into the understanding of these processes, leading to a more thorough study in master's level subjects. This approach is notably important for the distance learning characteristic of the UNED, to which the authors belong, by allowing the generation of remote practices through the use of finite element simulation supported by real experimental data.

Keywords:

Forming process, Manufacturing, Engineering, Experimental lessons.