Anisotropic characteristics of materials and basic selecting rules with different sheet metal forming processes

Anisotropy is one of the important properties of sheet metals, which affects the forming results very seriously in some forming cases. The effects of anisotropy are very sensitively dependent on the different forming processes and forming failures. In order to apply anisotropy to improve the forming processes and obtain better forming parts, each of the forming processes should require different behavior of the anisotropy to compatibly match it. The reasons why the fundamental characteristics of deformation depend on the anisotropy of sheet metals are described in this paper. Then, applications of the anisotropy, which combine the anisotropic behavior with the main forming failures of the different sheet metal processes, are discussed. Analyzing the results should provide a basic rule for production to select the anisotropic properties for any forming process.