In the field of mechanical equipment manufacturing, the focus of research and development is not on weight reduction, but on how to choose between the rigidity and performance of components (such as strength or flexibility). For this contradiction, lightweight is one of the best solutions. The problems associated with lightweight were initially considered and systematically studied in aircraft manufacturing in engineering. Therefore, lightweight has been greatly developed in aviation research and has played an increasingly important role in construction machinery. This paper presents a brief description of the current status of lightweight in machinery by reviewing some significant progress made in the last decades. Potential research topics are also discussed from the four aspects of material, structure, bionics, and manufacturing, and they forecast the development trend of lightweight in the future construction machinery. The entire body of literature about the field is not covered due to the limitation of the length of paper. The scope of this review is limited and closely related to the development of lightweight technology in engineering applications.

We report a controllable and scalable fabrication approach for the superhydrophobic hierarchical structures and demonstrate the excellent ability to harvest water energy when applied to water-solid contact triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). A strategy combined with multiple photolithography and micromolding process was developed to accurately regulate the diameters and the center distances of the two-level micropillars. A variety of hierarchical structures were successfully fabricated and presented the advantages of structure control, large scale, high accuracy, and high consistency. The hydrophobic property characterizations were conducted, and the results indicated that the hierarchical structures showed a larger contact angle than the single-level structures and achieved superhydrophobicity. Then the hierarchical structures were applied to water-TENGs with flowing water continuously dripping on, and the effect of the structure parameter on the triboelectric output was analyzed. The hierarchical structures exhibited a superior ability to harvest water energy than the flat film and the single-level structures due to the enhanced friction area and superhydrophobic property. At a flowing velocity of 8 mL/s, the hierarchical structure generated the output voltage of approximately 34 V and the short-circuit current of around 5 μA. The water-TENG device exhibited a power density peak of 7.56 μW/cm² with a resistive load of 16.6 MΩ at a flowing velocity of 10 mL/s. These findings shed light on the potential applications of the hierarchical structures-based water-TENGs to water energy harvesting and self-powered sensor devices.

In order to solve the problem of low accuracy caused by instability and springback during the single point incremental forming (SPIF) process, static pressure support (SPS) and ultrasonic vibration (UV) are introduced into the technology for auxiliary forming. In order to qualitatively and quantitatively study the mechanism of static pressure support–ultrasonic vibration-single point incremental forming (SPS-UV-SPIF) force, a typical truncated cone is used as the research object. The working principle and motion rules of the technology are analyzed. The sheet micro-element of the sidewall area is taken as an analysis object. The spatial stress balance equation of the sheet is constructed. The various stresses are integrated and calculated. The forces in each area of the sheet are analyzed and modeled. Finally, an analytical model for SPS-UV-SPIF force is established. The influence law of the static pressure parameter and the vibration parameter on the forming force is obtained. The corresponding SPS system and UV system are designed. The Kistler forming force test system is built. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical analysis results, which verifies the correctness of the analytical model.

An excessive thickness‐reducing ratio of the deformation zone in single point incremental forming of the metal sheet process has an important influence on the forming limit. Prediction of the deformation zone thickness is an important approach to control the thinning ratio. Taking the 1060 aluminum as the research object, the principle of thickness deformation in the single point incremental forming process was analyzed; the finite element model was established using ABAQUS. A formula with high accuracy to predict the deformation zone thickness was fitted with the simulation results, and the influences of process parameters, such as tool diameter, step down, feeding speed, sheet thickness, and forming angle, on thinning ratio were analyzed. The accuracy of the finite element simulation was verified by experiment. A method to control the thinning rate by changing the forming trajectory was proposed. The results showed that the obtained value by using the fitted formula is closer to the experimental results than that obtained by the sine theorem. The thinning rate of the deformation zone increases with the increase of tool diameter, forming angle, and sheet thickness and decreases with the increase of step down, while the feeding speed had no significant effect on the thinning ratio. The most important factor of the thinning ratio is the forming angle, and the thinning ratio can be effectively reduced by using the forming trajectory with a uniformly distributed pressing point.

Uniform wall thickness plays an essential role in avoiding forming failure in incremental sheet forming. However, it is challenging to promote the uniform distribution of wall thickness in single-pass forming of high wall angle and complex three-dimensional thin-walled parts using flexible dieless incremental sheet forming technology. In this article, based on the hydraulic support single-point incremental sheet forming technology, the finite element software is used to simulate and analyze the influence of different support pressure on the wall thickness distribution and the uniform critical angle of single-pass incremental sheet forming truncated pyramid parts. The results show that the hydraulic support can effectively improve the thickness uniformity and critical forming angle. In addition, a single-point increment experiment system of hydraulic support is designed, and the uniform critical angle of wall thickness corresponding to different support pressure is obtained. The experimental results are consistent with the finite element simulation results. Therefore, this article provides guidance for manufacturing high wall angles and complex parts with uniform wall thickness in single-pass incremental sheet forming.

With increasing design complexities of thin-walled parts, the requirement of enhanced formability has impeded the development of the single point incremental forming (SPIF) process. In the present research, the ultrasonic vibration-assisted single point incremental forming (UV-SPIF) method was introduced to increase the formability of sheet metals. AL1060 aluminum alloy was adopted as the experimental material, and a truncated cone part was considered as the research object. The simulation model of UV-SPIF was established to analyze the distribution of plastic strains in the formed part. A forming angle was selected as the measuring index of formability of the aluminum sheet, and the influences of different vibration parameters on formability were evaluated. An experimental platform was devised to verify the accuracy of the obtained simulation results. It was found that ultrasonic vibration effectively improved the forming limit of the sheet. When the amplitude was 6 µm and the frequency was 25 kHz, the sheet yielded the best formability with the largest forming angle of 67 degrees.