Design and Analysis of Stage Progressive Die for a Sheet Metal Component

Stamping die industries had been a significant impact on research and development of new technology for bigger and advance. To sustain the stamping die industry under the current global situation, cost and time are most important factors that need to be focus. In this case study, the main problem of design and analysis of progressive die is cost spent for die fabrication is high, the number of station or stages is high that will affect the production time and lifespan of tool is short. This paper focused at the stages or station that will be redesign to reduce the cost for the die, station optimization to reduce time taken for stamping process and simulate the design of tools to calculate the life cycle of punch. The study is conducted through AutoCAD and Solidwork to redesign the die and strip layout optimization. Subsequently, the ABAQUS/CAE and e-fatigue are used to completed the analysis and life cycle results for punch with various design of punch edge. Theoretical analysis indicates that design of punch plays a vital role in life cycle analysis.

Environmental and Economic Evaluation of the Sheet Metal Stamping Process Using Alternative Lubricants

Sheet metal forming of tribologically difficult materials (e.g. stainless steel) or forming in tribologically difficult conditions (e.g. ironing, punching, deep drawing) require the use of environmentally hazardous lubricants, such as chlorinated paraffin oils in order to avoid galling. The present paper describes an environmental and economic evaluation of two alternative sheet metal stamping processes. The forming of a sheet metal component for boiler burners has been taken as case study for the analyses. In particular, two different lubricants (standard mineral versus polymer matrix-based lubricant) have been tested and compared. However, the differences among the two processes involves not only the lubrication phase, but also the electric energy consumption during the stamping and degreasing, as well as the typology of solvent (perchloroethylene versus water). Results obtained with the economic analysis show that the use of the alternative lubricant leads to a 16% reduction of the total manufacturing cost, mainly due to the optimization of the degreasing. Concerning environmental results, instead, no relevant differences can be observed for almost all the considered impact categories (ReCiPe midpoint and endpoint), since the optimized phases are not the most critical ones.

Computer-Assisted Design of Sheet Metal Component Formed from Stainless Steel

The development of the product from stainless steel, which is produced for the client in large series, is presented. Technological optimisation was mainly focussed on the design of the deep drawing process in a single operation, which proved to be technologically unstable and therefore unfeasible for the prescribed shape of the product. Testing of prototype products showed unacceptable wrinkling due to the cone-shaped geometry of the workpiece. For this purpose, the research work was oriented towards technological optimisation of forming operations and set-up of proper phase plan in order to eliminate the wrinkling of the material. Testing of several different materials of the same quality was performed to determine the appropriate input parameters used for digital analyses. The analyses were focussed towards the set-up of optimal forming process and appropriate geometry of the corresponding tool, which allowed deep drawing of the workpiece without tearing and/or wrinkling of the material. Performed analyses of the forming process in the digital environment were tested with experiments, which showed a good correlation between the results of both development concepts.