How do you manage distortion?

Options include clamping, conformal tooling and cold-work methods.

We have several options. We can clamp the part very rigidly to restrain as much movement as possible; however, this increases the likelihood of cracking. We can let the part move using compliant tooling, but then we need to predict how the part will move to design the preform appropriately. We can remove unnecessary bits of the starting plate and clamp the part snugly using conformal tooling, but this increase the complexity of pre-processing operations. Finally, we can deploy cold-work methods, in-process, to strain the crystal opposite to residual stress, which sometimes increases processing times or makes the machine more expensive. Ultimately, what we end up doing depends on the geometry and material of the part.