• The ability to form repeatable, complex, one piece, 3D shapes from a single sheet of Superplastic material such as Ti6Al4V titanium.

• The ability to reduce fabrication costs by producing a one piece structure in place of a multipart riveted or welded assembly.

• Low flow stresses require low forming pressures

• Final thickness distribution is uniform with little variation

• Under the influence of temperature, parts are simultaneously formed and stress relieved resulting with little or no residual stresses in the formed component

• Whilst the tooling cost can be high this can be outweighed by the amalgamation of several parts into one tool resulting in cost effective material use and economic manufacturing costs?

• In all instances the key to economical manufacture is dialog between designers and practitioners at the design concept stage to ensure economic manufacture and product conformity..

(courtesy of Bill Swale, Aeromet)

Roadmap for superplastic forming (PDF 211k)

Generic SPF roadmap from BAE Systems (PDF 26k)

Road map on finite element SPF simulation (PDF 12k)

RI Todd's superplastic roadmap (PDF 25k)