What is spinning?
Spinning is a manufacturing technique for obtaining revolution metal parts.
The part is obtained from a disc. The material is function of the use domain. The disk is formed gradually on a tooling having the specific shape of the part to get.
The assembly is rotated by clamping of the disc against the tooling by means of a tailstock.
With the help of a spinning roller, it "pushes" the disk gradually on the tooling sometimes called mandrel (see figure below). The thickness of the sheet remains practically constant and we obtain a very good surface.
These parts can be made including carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminum and alloys, titanium...
Manufacturing possibilities allow obtaining parts having a diameter varying from 10 to 4500 mm and thicknesses of 0.5 to 40 mm depending on the material.
What is the flow forming?
There are two types of flow forming, the conical and cylindrical flow forming which respectively allows to produce parts conical or cylindrical. The advantage of the technique is to achieve seamless parts with a thickness variation under control while maintaining the fiber of the base metal.
Conical flow forming
The conical flow forming consists to obtain parts by creep the material between the tooling and the roller from a disk. In this case, the thickness of the part on the conical part is function of the thickness of departure and of the sine of the angle (see figure below).
Cylindrical flow forming
The cylindrical flow forming allows obtaining, from a preform, parts having a thickness which varies along the cylindrical portion. The tooling and the preform are rotated by the spindle. The rollers are placed at 120 ° relative to each other around the mandrel to obtain a balancing of the forces acting on the part. They exert pressure causing an axial creep of metal and a lengthening of the part (see figure below).
