Page 30 - MetalForming February 2011

Tooling Update
Metalforming Simulation: The Quick and the Dead
When Australian toolmaker Die Engi- neering Pty. Ltd. faced the recent chal- lenge of developing the die for deep-draw- ing the front-bumper reinforcement for the Toyota Camry, from a 590-MPa-ten- sile-strength Japanese steel, it needed to quickly determine if it could compete with other tool- makers that had quoted the part to
be drawn in a minimum of two stages. Thanks to sheetmetal-form-
ing simulation services provided
by www.stampingsimulation.com (North American headquarters in Wilmington, DE), using AutoForm- Incremental software, Die Engi- neering was able to determine in
less than 24 hr. that the product was fea- sible with just one draw. It used the sim- ulation results to ensure that it quoted the best price for a feasible tool, without guesswork nor any added fat.
Die Engineering won the job and pro-
ceeded with tool design based on the sim- ulations provided at quotation. To be suc- cessful in the press, it was critical to use simulation to validate the final tool
Die Engineering received the test data in less than 24 hr., and fed the data into the simulation to ensure accurate results.
Says Paul Elliston, Die Engineering director: “It was critical for the timing and cost of the project that we make acceptable parts at first tool tryout. After simulation, we calculated the required binder force and lubricant requirements, but our first part split. We immediately checked the blank size and realized we had cut the trial blank larger than the simulation determined. After making a simple blank-size adjustment, the die began to form acceptable parts without splits
or wrinkles. The customer couldn’t believe it.”
Elliston estimates that using simu- lation early in the project and by simu- lating the final tool design reduced the tryout process by at least 4 to 5 days. In
design. Here, the firm relied on virtual try- out using StampingSimulation.com’s SimulateLite Service. In addition, a sample of the 590-MPa production steel was sent to ThyssenKrupp Steel Services, Detroit, MI, for uniaxial tensile-strain testing.
28 MetalForming/February 2011
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