6. Cost-effective superplastic shaping

The profitability of a forming process depends on a number of parameters, including the production rate and the cost of presses and tooling. It is generally accepted that superplastic forming is particularly well suited to medium-scale production runs, such as those encountered in the aerospace and rail industries. This is due, on the one hand, to the relatively slow deformation speeds at which superplastic properties can be obtained with the microstructures currently available on the market (which rules out mass production) and, on the other hand, to the relatively low cost of presses (compared with the cost of presses for forming by stamping, for example). Recently, a special effort has been made to reduce the resulting cost of tooling.

Cost reduction often leads to the search for the lowest possible forming temperatures, in order to be able to form new materials...