Press Measurements and Virtual Rework of Stamping Dies

Abstract: Stamping dies are used in the Sheet Metal Forming (SMF) process for manufacturing of car body parts. The lead time for design and manufacturing of a stamping die is long, and therefore costly. In the final step of the manufacturing process, manual rework is performed to reach a desired pressure distribution on the forming surfaces in order to achieve a robust process and an approved part within tolerance. The main purpose for this work is to study and further develop a Virtual Rework Method that alters the shape of the forming surfaces of a die to compensate for the displacements of a stamping press that occur during stamping. Measurements were performed to obtain the displacements that occur in the stamping press during stamping. These measurements were performed on a double action deep drawing press of the brand Danly, located at Volvo Cars Tool & Die department in Olofström, Sweden. The measurement yields information of how the stamping press is deflecting and deforming during operation. The measurements are recorded with a Digital Image Correlation (DIC) system that records the displacements of the press during stamping. The displacements obtained in the measurements are then used as constraints to inverse FE- model a press table with topology optimization. This optimized press table is used in the Virtual Rework Method to be able to simulate both the deformations of the press and the internal deformations that occur in the die. Pre-simulations were performed before the measurements to ensure that the blank holder plate used in the measurements would withstand the applied blank holder force. These simulations also yield if the displacements were large enough for the ARAMIS DIC system to capture. The FE-model used in this work consisted of a die, blank holder, blank holder plate, outer ram and the optimized press table. The Virtual Rework Method was applied on the FE-model, where the result concludes that the altered shape of the deformed forming surfaces is almost identical to the shape of the nominal forming surfaces. However, an inversed modelled structure that represents the behavior of the outer ram is required to apply the Virtual Rework Method on the blank holder. This inversed modelled structure could be created from the displacements obtained in the measurements. To apply the Virtual Rework method on the punch, further measurements are required, where the position of the ARAMIS DIC system is altered, or an additional ARAMIS DIC system is used.