Page 41 - MetalForming December 2017

piercing of AHSS grades. A difficult deci- sion arises in choosing the right tool steel for either application. Factors affecting such a decision include: steel- making practices, grade characteristics, heattreatment processes, tempering temperatures, microstructure, surface coatings, and the impact of manufac- turing practices on the tool performance. Long gone are the days when we simply decided between 0-1, A2 and D2.
Tool-steel surface treating for large automotive and appliance tool steels may benefit from controllable electro- magnetic hammer heads that impart rapid reciprocal motion of a striker ball against the die surface—a process known as machine hammer peening. The process may eliminate manual polishing in dies and molds; improve wear resistance by increasing hardness
in the surface layer; reduce friction in deep-drawing applications; and poten- tially eliminate secondary processes such as heattreating, coating and nitriding while improving others.
Testing and comparing various met- alforming lubricants can be time-con- suming and risky to production tools. Most new lubricant formulas are based upon wet bench chemistry, not on actual field trials in an actual tool. Man- ufacturers can take advantage of stan- dardized cup-draw test tooling to eval- uate results for a variety of trial lubricants and sheetmetal substrates. This may prove an especially important step in lubricant selection for compa- nies processing various grades of AHSS materials. Test results can show corre- lation to real-life press applications, thus limiting the risk to actual tools.
Real-time and nondestructive pro- duction-monitoring tools have been widely used for various manufacturing areas such as joining and fabrication. Today, these tools monitor and assess incoming coil properties, blank surface finish/lubrication, die stresses, part tem- perature and final stamping quality.
Stay on Top of the Technology
The technologies discussed here are small a sampling of new, emerging and maturing technologies that will be presented and displayed at PMA and MetalForming magazine’s Metal Stamping and Tool & Die Conference, January 30-31, 2018, in Nashville, TN. For more information or to register for the event, visit www.pma.org/mstd- conference/ or contact Marianne Sichi at msichi@pma.org. MF
Tooling by Design
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