2014/12/17 Yokohama laboratory Section 2

Study for practical use of conductive titanium material (developed by NSSMC) for
AC64
Report No.1 Forming of cathode separator with thin titanium plate
1 Purpose of this trial
This development is an extension of localization of anode separator production as joint
development with SMILE and the purpose of the development are as follow.

For FCV volume production, improvements of performance and reliability and cost reduction
Acquisition of thin plate (t=0.1) process technology and in-house production of separators

Production of cathode separator requires higher precise process technology due to its 3D forming
than anode separator process.
And if the material is changed, design of cell and production process need to be optimized.
Through some optimizations, we would like to acquire the knowledge related to design and
production internally.
Schedule and contents to be implemented are as follow.
Technical
report
First
report
(this report)
Second
report
After
report

third

Content

Material

Target date

Process trial
Roller forming, re-strike
Process trial Trimming of
manifold part
Electric TestAC64, 6 cells
Durability testAC64, 6 cells
Improvement
of
process
accuracyRoller forming

Standard
titanium

End of October,
2014

Development
titanium

End of March,
2015

Development
titanium

End of September,
2015

2 Device
Chart 1 shows trial process. Tooling for process 1 and 2 have been purchased and evaluated. Both
tooling for roller forming and re-strike were produced by Miyoshi for internal review in order to give
SMILE quotation about 2 years ago.
Chart 1. Trial process of cathode separator and required tooling
Process
Tooling
Status
Process 1
Tooling for Roller forming
Purchased
Process 2
Tooling for re-strike
Purchased
Process 3
Tooling
for
trimming To be purchased
Thomson blade
To be confirmed
5.1 Tooling for roller forming
2 gears make preforming of 0.1mm thin plate.
The gears have a flat area to preform one cathode plate by one cycle.

Upper
gear
Lower
gear

Figure 1 Roller forming machine produced by Miyoshi (Leftoverall view, Upper right : Engagement
of upper and lower gear on process, Lower right : Enlarged view of gear)
5.2 Tooling for restrike
Preformed thin plate by using above machine is pressed into corrugated form. It was done by 80t
press machine (owned by Miyoshi).

Figure 2 Tooling for re-strike (Left : Lower tooling, Right : upper tooling)
3 Condition of process
6.1 Material
Standard titanium (JIS1, 0.1mm thickness)4 sheets
Conductive titanium developed by NSSMC has superior electric conductive to standard titanium
due to its surface treatment on their rolling line. As this conductive titanium does not need dedicated
surface treatment process and expensive special material (gold for Nano-clad), it has advantages
regarding total material cost and recyclability.
According to NSSMC, conductive titanium developed by them has the same press formability as
standard JIS1 titanium. For this time, we would like to confirm whether we can use the tooling for
SUS316L as well as for standard JIS1 titanium.
As Chart 2 as below shows, SUS316L and standard titanium have different characteristics of
press forming in terms of n figure and R figure. However, this level of gap can allow us to have
trials of press forming with the same tooling. Thus, we decided to observe dimension accuracy of
standard titanium formed with tooling made for SUS316L.
Chart 2. Characteristics of press forming
Material
n
R
SUS316L
0.40
1.00
Standard titanium 0.15
5.28

6.2 Process of forming

1
2
3
4
5

Standard titanium plate is inserted from the left side, which should be flat area of both gears.
Edges of gears are matched to the right position of the material, which are inserted lightly to
make initial forming.
Handle of lower gear is turned clockwise at stable speed to make the material sin-curve.
Sin-curved material is set on the press-machine (80t) with the tooling for re-strike and weighted
four corners with magnets.
Press forming is done to complete the process.

Current parts (made by Brandauer) are formed by 2 roller-forming processes. On the other hand,
this prototype needs only one time roller-forming process.
4 Result of forming
7.1 Roller forming
Wider pitch of corrugation by 4 mm was found compared with the forming of SUS316L. It is mainly
due to the difference of spring-back.

Difference of pitch
width
Figure 3Comparison of products after roller forming (First process)Upper:SUS316L, Lower:
Titanium
Deformations of corrugation were also found when the material was mildly sloped during the
process.

Diagonal
deformation

Figure 4 Deformed corrugation

7.2 Restrike
Due to greater spring back of Titanium after roller forming, the length was longer than the restrike
tooling size. In order to set it onto the restrike tooling, we shrunk the pitch of corrugation by hand.
When we shrunk it too much, we needed to slightly extend it again to fit it on the tooling.
It was found that the length of corrugation area was shorter than the one of SUS316L. The reason
for it would be that we shrunk it too much to adjust into the restrike tooling.

Difference of pitch
width
Figure 5 Comparison of products after restrike (Second process)Upper:SUS316L, Lower: Titanium
5 Result of precise measurement
Precise measurement was conducted for 4 prototypes made with Titanium sheets as described as
above. The measurement points are Pitch of corrugation Height of corrugation Flatness and
parallelismas below.

Flatness

Height

Parallelis
m

Pitch

Figure 6 Specified dimension on IE drawing (Cathode separator)

8.1 Pitch of corrugation
All corrugations of a prototype made from standard titanium (yellow line) were out of specification
due to shorter pitch compared with a prototype of SUS316L made with the same tooling and cathode
plate purchased from IE (Nano clad).

Figure 7 Comparison of corrugation pitch

8.2 Height of corrugation
The corrugation made from standard titaniumshow a trend of higher corrugation compared with
the one made from SUS316L and Nano clad.

Figure 8 Comparison of corrugation height

8.3 Flatness and parallelism

SUS316L and Nano clad could meet the specification. Regarding standard titanium, 2 out of 4
prototypes could meet the specification. It is probably because roller-formed parts were forced to put
into the re-strike tooling by shrinking it by hand.

SUS316L
Tooling made by
Miyoshi
Nano clad
Made by
Brandauer
Standard
titaniumTooling
made by Miyoshi

Chart 3. Comparison of flatness and parallelism

Measured
Tolerancem
Figuremm
m
Flatness
0.0261
0.05
Parallelism

0.0288

0.05

Flatness

0.0283

0.05

Parallelism

0.0312

0.05

Flatness

0.0353

0.05

Parallelism

0.0370

0.05

Note

Prototypes to meet the

specification

6 Review
Issues related to process operations
On the tooling of roller-forming, it is difficult to have flatness. It is required to have a guide to
forward the material properly.
While the process of roller-forming, it is preferable to turn the gear at the stable speed. However
it is difficult to do it by hand. So it should be considered to add motors on these gears to adjust
the speed of turning gears.
Issues related to process accuracy
Due to the difference of spring back and processing by hand, prototypes made from standard
titanium could not meet the specification. It is required to modify the gear of roller forming to fit it
into the restrike tooling.
Regarding flatness and parallelism, 2 out of 4 samples can meet the specification.
Conclusion
On the process of titanium material with the tooling made by Miyoshi, significant issues, such as
cracking on the materials and huge deviation of the specification could not be found though
prototypes made from standard titanium cannot meet some specifications. Thus, for the initial
material evaluations and electric tests, cathode plates made in this method can be useful.
Future action
We are going to prepare Thomson blade for Trial Process 3. (As in 2. Device)
In order to procure development samples from NSSMC, we are going to conclude NDA. Then, we
produce prototypes and conduct material evaluations and electric tests on test-rigs.
We are going to have precise measurement of the tooling to have a drawing of it. (Miyoshi declined
Suzukis request to buy drawings of the tooling.) After completion of drawings, we are going to
modify the tooling for titanium.
End of document