Page 12 - MetalForming-May-2018-issue

Tech Update
Virtual-Engineering Best Practices
Springback best practices, diligently accumulated over decades, have been effective in managing dimensional com- pliance on mild steel and high-strength low-alloy stampings—even with little or no support from virtual engineering tools. Over the past dozen years, newer grades of advanced high strength steels and alu- minum alloys, however, have upended this store of accepted best practices and collective wisdom. The role of virtual engi- neering in the mitigation and management of springback for these materials now is clearly acknowledged, but, best practices toward effective application of these tools are not widely and clearly understood.
With that sentiment, Kidambi Kannan, technical manager at AutoForm Engineering USA, Inc., provides a rundown of virtual- engineering best practices, noting that virtual-engineering tools have evolved to a high level of dependability, and that no physical detail is too trivial to model in
This simulation graphic shows a springback vector field overlaid onto die surfaces in preparation for springback compensation.
the virtual world. Here Kannan presents an actionable list of virtual-engineering best practices that crystallize these themes, and which have helped practitioners
10 MetalForming/May 2018
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achieve higher levels of success in miti- gating and managing springback.
• Model die condition and simulate process in detail, and exactly as intended