Page 31 - MetalForming July 2011

Out with the Old, Costly Process
When Trico introduced the newly designed spring-steel blades to the market in 2007, it employed a sophis- ticated (and costly) heattreating process to achieve the required blade curvature with the prehardened spring steel stock, uniquely specified to match the curvature of each OEM’s wind- shield. Early in 2010, Trico’s Brownsville, TX, manufacturing facility (and North American headquarters) invested in a new manufacturing line to turn out the beams.
As described by Trico process engi- neer Ramiro Pena, the new process begins with rollforming spring-steel strip to shape. After rollforming in a continuously fed line, formed strip runs through a pair of small-bed one-hit stamping presses for hole piercing and cutting to length.
“The line runs 12 hr./day, 7 days/week,” says Pena, “producing some 20 different part numbers. Com- pared to the previous process (heat- treating the curvature into the blades), the new process is five times faster and 30 percent less costly.” The facili- ty, certified to Ford Q1, TS16949, and ISO 9001 and 14001, ships beams to a sister plant in Mexico for paint and assembly.
PM Tool Steels up to the Task
Trico contracted with German sup- pler Felss GmbH for the rollform line, and then turned to tool-steel suppler Eastern Tool Steel, St. Marys, PA, for powdered-metal tool-steel punches and dies for use in the two stamping presses at the end of the line. Felss manufactures single-station machines and transfer lines for cold forming of solid and hollow (tubular) workpieces.
“When the line first launched,” says Pena, “we ran punches and dies (8 by 8 in.) machined from M4 tool steel, and they couldn’t stand up to the hard- ened spring steel. The tools prema- turely chipped and dulled, causing excessive burrs on the blades. We were servicing the tools every 4000 hits or
so. Within a few months, we knew we needed to change tool steels, and East- ern Tool Steel recommended the pow- dered-metal AISI T15 grade (ASP 2015 from Sweden-based Erasteel, with U.S. operations in Romeoville, IL, and Boonton, NJ).
“We machine the blocks (2.5 in. thick), send them to ETS for heattreat- ing (to Rc 63-64), then wire-EDM to final dimensions here,” says Pena.
According to an Erasteel datasheet, ASP 2015 (12 W, 5.0 V, 5.0 Co, 4.0 Cr, 1.55 C) most commonly finds use in end- mills, hobs, cutters and broaches. It’s delivered with a soft-annealed hard- ness to 260 HB, and cold-drawn hard- ness to 300 HB.
“We’ve been getting as many as 20,000 hits between tool-maintenance cycles,” boasts Pena, “since we switched to the new PM tool steel.” MF
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MetalForming/July 2011 29
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