A controlled forming process aims to achieve a desired shape product without defects which is pursued by many researchers in this field. An optimal blank holder force (BHF) profile is an efficient way to control the material flow during the forming process. Here to an axisymmetric part, the Finite Element Method was adopted to numerically simulate the forming process to search for the optimized BHF pattern. Time-variant BHF was studied and compared in this paper. Different time-variant BHF patterns, such as linearly shaped and stepped, ascending and descending were discussed here. Based on the numerical simulation results, strain path in different area under the various blank holder force schemes were analyzed and compared with each other. The results reveal that the ascending time-variant BHF is an optimal pattern which is effective to prevent wrinkle occurring and average the strain distribution during the forming process compared with the descending BHF type.