Electromagnetic drive forming technology is a special forming process that uses pulsed Lorentz force to drive a high-conductivity sheet to move, thereby driving a low-conductivity sheet to cause plastic deformation, which can effectively make up for the shortage of traditional electromagnetic forming in forming low-conductivity materials. However, in the existing electromagnetic drive forming, the driver sheet also undergoes plastic deformation, which tends to lead to a serious problem of wastage of the driver sheet, and it is difficult to regulate the forming shape.

To solve this, instead of the traditional circular drive sheet, a solid copper ring with a specific thickness is employed, utilizing the strong electromagnetic force generated in the copper ring to propel it at high speed into collision with a metal sheet. This impact generates a contact force, causing the sheet to undergo plastic deformation. Additionally, an electromagnetic-structural coupling model for the copper ring electromagnetic drive forming process is developed using LS-DYNA software. A series of electromagnetic drive forming experiments are then conducted, using a TA2 titanium plate as the test material, to validate the feasibility of the proposed method. Numerical simulation and experimental results show that under a single discharge (7 kV), a metallic copper ring with a diameter of 80 mm can drive the titanium plate to deform and the forming height can reach 14 mm. Meanwhile, based on strain analysis of the forming sheet and the driven ring, the solid copper ring does not deform and can be reused. In addition, by changing the size and shape of the copper ring, the forming profile of the plate can be flexibly adjusted. For example, when the diameters of the circular driving rings are 65, 80, and 95 mm, uniformly deformed areas with diameters of 58, 72, and 87 mm are observed on the top of the sheet, which is highly consistent with the shape of the rings. Even if the forming height is increased, the forming shape of the center area of the sheet remains a flat-topped profile when enhancing the discharge voltages. On this basis, the dynamic deformation process of the sheet is further investigated through numerical methods, to reveal the deformation behavior and forming mechanism of the titanium plate driven by the copper ring, which demonstrates that the forming velocity approaching 100 m/s and the strain rate is up to 1 000 s^-1. Hence, this forming process belongs to the category of high-speed forming technology.

The obtained results indicate that, since the copper ring is a solid ring with a specific thickness, it does not experience plastic deformation during the electromagnetic drive forming process and can be reused. This effectively addresses the issue of excessive waste of the driver sheet in conventional electromagnetic drive forming. The copper ring also provides shape adjustment capabilities, allowing for the formation of sheets with circular, quadrilateral, and hexagonal flat tops. The height of the flat-topped profile can be controlled by adjusting the discharge voltage, overcoming the problem of limited shape flexibility in existing electromagnetic drive forming methods. These results are of significant practical value for advancing and expanding the applications of electromagnetic drive forming technology.