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Asymmetric incremental sheet forming (AISF) is a relatively new manufacturing process for the production of low volumes of sheet metal parts. Forming is accomplished by the CNC controlled movements of a simple ball-headed tool that follows a 3D trajectory to gradually shape a sheet metal blank. The local plastic deformation under the tool leads to a number of challenges for the Finite Element Modeling. Previous work indicates that implicit finite element methods are at present not efficient enough to allow for the simulation of AISF for industrially relevant parts, mostly due to the fact that the moving contact requires a very small time step. Explicit Finite Element methods can be speeded up by means of mass or load scaling to enable the simulation of large scale sheet metal forming problems, even for AISF. However, it is well known that the methods used to speed up the FE calculations can entail poor results when dynamic effects start to dominate the solution. Typically, the ratio of kinetic to internal energy is used as an assessment of the influence of dynamical effects. It has already been shown in the past that this global criterion can easily be violated locally for a patch of elements of the finite element mesh. This is particularly important for AISF with its highly localised loading and complex tool kinematics. The present paper details an investigation of dynamical effects in explicit Finite Element analysis of AISF. The interplay of mass or time scaling scheme and the smoothness of the tool trajectory is analysed with respect to the resulting errors. Models for tool path generation will be presented allowing for a generation of tool trajectories with predefined maximum speed and acceleration. Based on this, a strategy for error control is proposed which helps reduce the time for setting up reliable explicit finite element models for AISF. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]