Page 46 - MetalForming April 2015

Metalforming Technology
focus shifted to building the capacity and investing in the assets we needed, including new press and blanking lines and new fastening equipment—rivet- ing, flow-drill screws, clinching and welding.”
Dearborn Stamping is bringing in four classes of aluminum alloys—two 5000-series alloys, differing in the amount of magnesium they contain; and two 6000-series alloys. “We use a low-copper 6000-series alloy for any exposed material,” Friedman says. “This is a trend throughout the indus- try. Compared to the once-industry- standard Type 6111 alloy, the low- copper alloys better resist filiform corrosion.”
During the extensive stamping- plant renovation, stamped-scrap han- dling received priority. The existing conveyor setup running to and through the plant’s basement remains in place to handle offal scrap. These relatively large pieces of scrap, say from a window cutout, serve as
blanks for smaller stamped parts. However, to handle the majority of the stamped scrap in a closed-loop recycling operation, Ford commis- sioned an overhead cyclonic scrap- handling system.
“We’ve installed four separate scrap- conveying lines—one per alloy type— that pull scrap up from the dies and into chutes,” Friedman explains. “They convey the scrap out of the building to four awaiting trucks. Again, one truck per alloy.”
Sliver Management
Ford is stamping aluminum 0.85 to 3.8 mm thick, “much thicker than any aluminum we’ve stamped before,” says Friedman. Several parts on the F-150 have been up-gauged from their steel counterparts, including the cargo-box floor (from 0.85-mm bake-hardened steel to 1.4-mm aluminum, and the doors (from 0.9-mm steel to 1.2-mm aluminum).
While keeping his cards close to his
chest, Friedman does point to a few areas of metalforming technology crit- ical to the success of its aluminum acu- men. These include sliver management in trim dies, “important as we’ve gotten into thicker aluminum sections,” he says; springback prediction and man- agement; and investigating lubricants geared toward enhancing the forma- bility of aluminum.
On the first front—solving the sliv- er issue—Ford is focused on methods for supporting scrap. “During devel- opment of our previous aluminum platforms,” Friedman says, “we learned plenty about how to support scrap to minimize slivers. It’s been a long and continuous journey, but it’s critical to minimizing die maintenance when stamping aluminum.”
In the area of die design and spring- back modeling and compensation, “we’ve gotten much better at develop- ing good dies right out of the gate,” Friedman says, noting its use of Auto- Form and LS Dyna.
Die Design and Simulation
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