Page 40 - MetalForming January 2015

The Competitive Edge:
Creating
Die Surfaces
There’s a new software package in the house at die designer and developer extraordinaire Fontana Pietro, reinforcing the firm’s mission to support the development of several of the world’s “supercar” brands.
Among the features of AutoForm-ProcessDesign- erforCatia is the ability to easily and accurately com- pute developed flanges.
Metalforming involves
the creation of sur-
faces which, depend-
ing on their complexity,
requires adjustments be made
at the right time and according to the desired level of preci- sion and quality. Well aware of this fact: The technicians working at Fontana Pietro’s engineering department, where many an automotive stamping die is designed and manu- factured.
Italy-based Fontana Pietro, known for engineering and building dies, as well as for producing bodies, for several lux- ury “supercar” brands such as Ferrari, Rolls Royce and Jaguar, employs Catia V5 during die design, according to its website, to “optimize machine programming schedules.” Early in 2013, the firm’s engineers began testing software (Auto- Form-ProcessDesignerforCatia) for creating die layouts with- out having to leave the Catia environment. Having tested the
software’s ability to allow engineers to easily and quickly design high-quality die faces, as well as create draw beads and develop secondary die operations, Fontana Pietro decided late in 2014 to adopt the new software within its product- development process.
“We are satisfied with having started this collaboration with AutoForm Engineering,” says Valentina Cavenago, sen- ior die surfaces technician at Fontana Pietro, “to investigate the benefits offered by the new software. From the very begin- ning it has demonstrated the potential to meet our needs.”
Workflow Standardization
AutoForm-ProcessDesignerforCatia, one of several soft-
38 MetalForming/January 2015
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