Page 48 - MetalForming March 2016

Hot-Forming Die Design and Build
certain areas of the part and rigidity in others. Ductility helps absorb crash impact energy while rigidity helps the component resist collapse during a collision. In AP&T systems, hot-formed parts are quenched while still in pro- duction die sets, which requires design- ing the dies for rapid water-cooling. For austenite-martensite transforma- tions, the rate of cooling is critical.
Quenching newly formed parts in the forming dies requires three sets of analyses with Pam-Stamp, Wigren explains.
“Our first analyses are thermal/fea- sibility, based on the assumption that cooling water is located 10 mm from the die surface,” he says. “Next comes design and analysis of the cooling system.”
Inside of the dies, channels carry water to absorb the heat produced dur- ing forming, when temperatures can reach 450 C in just a few seconds. A third set of simulations verifies that the entire quenching process will meet
This illustration depicts the complex hot forming of B-pillars, utilizing a tailored blank, spacers, guides and several pads.
customer requirements for physical properties and production time.
Savings to 30 Percent on Time and Cost
In high-production, short-cycle- time manufacturing, functionality and appearance must be balanced against manufacturability and cost. The abili- ty to accurately simulate and analyze a
process is vital to optimizing the nec- essary tradeoffs envisioned in cus- tomers’ designs. That is certainly true for AP&T.
Whereas AP&T had previously refined the part design from what a customer provided, its engineers now work mostly with the steel blank, help- ing to speed customer acceptance. “Because the simulation loops are
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46 MetalForming/March 2016
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