Structural analysis on the arc spraying rapid tooling for sheet forming

The structural performance of arc spraying rapid tooling (ASRT) directly affects its application in prototype automobile manufacturing. The ASRT is made up of several kinds of materials, which increases the difficulty of structural analysis. In this paper, the properties of arc-sprayed coating and its influence on ASRT were analyzed by tensile test, and the stiffness model of ASRT was established to optimize the structure design. Furthermore, a failure evaluation criterion was adopted to analyze the feasibility and reliability of ASRT. Therefore, a new hybrid structure of ASRT was proposed to reduce the difficulty of its fabrication process. The research results demonstrate that the performance of ASRT can be improved by proper structure design, and it is also proved that ASRT is easy to be fabricated at low cost and can meet the requirements for prototype automobile.