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Tool making innovations in sheet metal forming

Article · January 2008

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 9th International Conference on Technology of Plasticity
Geongju-Korea, 7-11. September 2008.

Tool Making Innovations in Sheet Metal Forming

M. Tisza1, Zs. Lukács1, P. Kovács1
1
Univeristy of Miskolc, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hungary

Summary
The increased competition in the automotive industry leads to a great model variety with
increasing demand to shorten model cycles and to reduce lead times at a decreasing cost level.
This requires a special response from car manufacturers to realise a more flexible and
simultaneously more standardised manufacturing of vehicles applying new materials, new
manufacturing methods, as well as more innovative die design and tool making activities,
combined with shorter development and production times and lower manufacturing costs in
tooling production, as well. This can be achieved by the increasing use of various methods of
Computer Aided Engineering in tool and die design including sophisticated CAD systems for die
design, and ever increasingly the various finite element analysis methods leading to an overall
digital tool shop concept. This paper will introduce a simulation based die design concept
implemented in tool-making for sheet metal forming with particular interest on car manufacturing.

1 Introduction

Sheet metal forming is one of the most important manufacturing processes. This is particularly
valid for the automotive industry, where sheet metal forming has an even more important key position.
Since the automotive industry is one of the leading sectors in many countries, thus it is often the main
driving force behind the sheet metal forming developments as well. The competition in car
manufacturing is extremely strong leading to larger model variety and shorter model cycles. This
competition also leads to very intense development activity to increase productivity and to reduce
costs. This competition also leads to the application of new body concepts. New design concepts often
require new materials, and new materials stimulate the elaboration of new innovative forming
processes and new tooling concepts. Tool making had always a key role in sheet manufacturing, and
this is even further emphasized with the need to implement more cost-optimized processes and
production techniques for the realisation of quantity-optimized and variant-flexible tools for forming.
The contributions of the tool making to the decrease of lead time and to reduce the production costs
are indisputable, thus, the importance of innovations in tool making even further increases in the
future. Higher functional requirements increased demands on lightweight constructions, which are
often solved for example by the application of so-called multi-material body concept. In addition to
new tool technology, multi-material construction principle also requires new tooling concepts.
A further critical contribution of tool making to the objectives described above is to be found in the
ongoing reduction in tool costs and with it a reduction in investment costs despite greater component
and tool complexity coupled with higher material prices. An important tool development issue is the
quantity-optimised tool concept for small production series. Depending on the quantity, in which a
vehicle is to be produced, the optimal relationship between investment cost and production costs needs
to be determined. Volume production requires tools and plants capable of manufacturing components
requiring no reworking. Due to the large volumes, the required high investment costs amount to a
small proportion of the cost of manufacturing a component. That is why, especially with small
volumes, the investment costs need to be minimised.

2 Brief overview of main research tendencies in sheet metal forming as prerequisites

behind tool developments

As mentioned before, strong competition in car manufacturing led to the application of new body
concepts requiring new materials, and new materials stimulated the elaboration of new innovative
forming processes and new tooling concepts. Therefore, it is worth mentioning some recent
developments in materials and sheet forming processes as the prerequisites of tool developments.

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2.1 Material research and development

Some decades ago, design engineers mainly focused their attention on structural and dimensional
stability and durability. In recent years, the reduction of fuel consumption together with increasing
comfort requirements led to the intensive development of innovative new materials. Enhanced
stiffness together with weight reduction resulted in the development and wide application of various
grades of high strength steels. Nowadays, several micro-alloyed and phosphorous-alloyed steels both
with and without bake-hardening are frequently used. An increasing use of interstitial-free (IF) steels,
dual-phase and TRIP-steels, as well as the ultra low and super ultra low carbon steels can also be
mentioned. It can be observed that from the elaboration of various micro-alloyed steels in the mid-
seventieth of the last century, there is a continuous pressure on material development leading to the
appearance of new advanced steel materials practically in each five year [1].
Due to the increasing demand for environment friendly vehicles requiring reduced fuel consump-
tion and weight, besides steel as structural material, aluminium alloys in automobiles are recently also
widely used in car manufacturing for body-in-white production and their ratio will even further
increase: these developments led to the elaboration of multi-material body concept [2].

2.2 Innovative new forming processes

New materials often require new, innovative sheet forming processes: in this respect, the
automotive industry always played key role, and on the other hand, automobile as a mass production
would be unthinkable without forming technology. They have a mutually advantageous effect on each
other resulting in a synergic interdisciplinarity of various sciences.
The rapidly emerging application of tailor welded parts, which are already used in most modern
vehicles, is one of the most characteristic examples in this respect. Tailored blanks, where various
sheets of different thickness or quality are welded together and formed subsequently to withstand
various loads at different sections, are mainly due to the developments in laser technology. Nowadays,
formability issues of tailor welded blanks are one of the most important questions, to provide
significant load-bearing parts with reduced weight without any decrease of structural stability [3].
Among new, innovative forming processes hydroforming can be regarded as an outstanding one.
Hydroforming is mainly used to produce hollow sheet or tube products – often with complicated
geometry – to produce lightweight parts more economically [4]. There are many other new innovative
forming processes recently introduced in sheet metal forming partly due to the latest results of
materials development. Here, we just mention the new the renaissance of superplastic forming to
produce complicated parts in a single operation for low volume production, and more recently the hot
forming/press hardening of boron alloyed steels as a very promising field for the application of high
strength materials in the automotive industry [5].
Since, this paper mainly aims dealing with tool making innovations, here we just mention these
technological innovations and will rather focus on tooling aspects of forming processes, however,
technological and tool developments are in inevitable interaction.

3 Tool making innovations: research and developments in the press shop

It is obvious that tool making has a vital role in the development in sheet metal forming. Since
stamping tool manufacturing is one of the most expensive fields in car manufacturing, it is of utmost
importance to reduce the time and costs for tool design and manufacturing and to meet the concept
“right tools at first”. In this respect, the application of various methods of Computer Aided
Engineering (CAE) including the Computer Aided Tool Design and Computer Controlled Tool
Manufacturing, as well as the integration of product-, process- and die development with numerical
simulation (mainly with FEM modelling) in the whole development cycle are crucial for the
competitiveness in sheet metal forming. Today, both the available computer technique and the various
dedicated software packages developed particularly for the metal forming industry (in many cases in
close cooperation with the automotive industry) may be regarded as the most significant developments
in the last 15-20 years. Due to these developments, tool making which was for a long time rather an art
of toolmaker masters become a real science based engineering discipline.

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3.1 Evolution of Computer Aided Engineering in tool design

The Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) had and still have a
tremendous impact on tool and die industry. At the beginning, CAD systems were mainly used only to
create 2D and 3D die design drawings. Though, it was a significant development step from the old
stamping design practice, however, this approach often resulted in unforeseen problems during tooling
tryout, since, in this “traditional solution” CAD was only used during the die design phase. Thus,
when it was completed, then the die was constructed followed by the tooling tryout to troubleshoot for
stamping defects. If parts were produced without stamping defects, it was sent for production. If any
defects occurred during the tryout, the die set had to be reworked. As a result, the die manufacturing
time and cost of die making was significant [6].
Forming simulation was introduced into the stamping manufacturing process mainly to improve the
efficiency of process planning. The reliability and accuracy in forming simulation have helped to find
forming defects before the real die construction. By implementing simulation in the forming process
chain, the major stamping defects can be minimized prior to the die construction stage. Hence, the
tooling tryout process is smoother and the die set can be delivered for production much earlier [7].
An interesting simulation approach is realised at GE Manufacturing Engineering reported by Wang
and his co-workers [8]. They defined sheet metal forming as a displacement or draw-in controlled
manufacturing process which is particularly valid for automotive body panel production. Introducing
the draw-in amount as a single manufacturing index that controls all forming characteristics (strains,
stresses, thinning, etc.), stamping failures (splits, wrinkles, surface distortion, etc.). Draw-in Map is
engineered for math-based die developments via advanced stamping simulation technology. Then the
Draw-in Map is provided to die makers in plants as a road map for math-guided die tryout in which
the die tryout workers follow the engineered tryout conditions and matches the engineered draw-in
amount so that the tryout time and cost are greatly reduced, and quality is ensured.
Similarly significant results are reported by Griesbach and his co-workers [9] achieved at the Audi
Motor Co. Applying the recent results of material and tool innovations, as well as by the application of
numerical simulation and Computer Aided Engineering techniques in tool making resulted in
significant time and cost reduction in spite of the increasing complexity of sheet metal parts and
manufacturing dies. For example, the production time for a die set for an outer side panel was reduced
by 60% between 1996 and 2006, together with a 30-40% cut in the associated tool costs.

3.2 Simulation Based Die Design

Stamping manufacturing process shortfalls can be further improved by the implementation of
Simulation Based Die Design modules into simulation packages to enhance interaction with product
designers. These implementations support die design process by solving stamping defects during the
die development process. Therefore, they even further reduce the lead time of die design and
construction, and also the associated cost.
Today, in most stamping simulation packages, Simulation Based Die Design module is embedded
in the system. For example, in the AutoForm – one of the leading sheet metal forming simulation
packages – this is the so-called Die Design module, which is associated both to AF-OneStep inverse
simulation module providing fast feasibility analysis and to AF-Incremental module suitable for
detailed numerical process simulation. This Die Design module strongly supports process and die
design engineers to quickly derive forming die surfaces, including binder and addendum from the part
geometry. It allows the user to easily design and re-engineer the die tooling using numerous automated
functions provided in the software. The implementation of Simulation Based Die Design supports die
design engineers to further reduce iteration time for tooling design and development cycles as well as
the associated cost.

3.3 Integrated Process Simulation and Die Design

In our practice at the University of Miskolc, Department of Materials Processing Technologies in
co-operation with sheet metal forming companies, we elaborated an integrated system for process
simulation and simulation based die design [10].

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 9th International Conference on Technology of Plasticity
Geongju-Korea, 7-11. September 2008.

Product design Feasibility study OK Die Design

CAD part model UG-AF interface OneStep simulation AutoForm Die
Unigrapics NX AF-OS Designer AF-DD

Failed Die redesign

Product redesign
Process planning
Incremental simulation
AF-IS
In this system, the whole product

interface
development cycle is handled in a joint

UG-AF
integrated CAD and FEM simulation UG-AF interface AF-UG interface
environment (Fig. 1.). This solution
requires efficient CAD and FEM
packages and a special interface module Die construction

Die redesign
to enhance the information and data Process Unigrapics NX
or die redesign NC/CNC manufacturing
exchange between CAD modelling and
FEM simulations in both directions
making possible the most efficient
integration during the whole product Prototyping & Tool
try-out
development cycle. (Optional)
In our solution, we use Unigraphics-
NX or CATIA as CAD system together
with the AutoForm simulation package.
The selection of the above two CAD Line Production
systems may be reasoned first of all by
the fact that both have a unique interface
Fig. 1. Process Planning and Die Design in integrated
(AF-NX, and AF-CATIA), which pro-
simulation environment
vides the necessary and continuous inter-
action between the CAD and FEM simulation packages making possible a real integrated process
simulation and die design procedure as shown in Fig. 1. This integrated solution will be illustrated
through the example of an automotive part. The CAD model of the component to be manufactured
created by the product design engineer is shown in Fig. 2.
As it often happens in the automotive industry, the
component has a symmetric counterpart (so-called left and
right handed or double attached parts). This model is
created in the Unigraphics NX CAD system as a solid
model in the Product design module (see Fig. 1.), however,
FEM systems dedicated for sheet metal forming usually
require surface models. Therefore, before exporting the part
model a surface model should be created. This function is
well-supported in most CAD systems: even we can decide
which surface (top, middle or bottom) will be exported into
the surface model. Unigraphics is particularly well suited
for this purpose, due to its UG-AF interface module which
is associatively linked to the AutoForm software package
providing a smooth, efficient and consistent data transfer
between the two systems in both directions.
3.3.1 Feasibility of the component formability
Fig. 2. CAD model of the component to
In most cases, process planning engineers would like to be produced
know right at the beginning whether the component can be
manufactured with the planned formability operations. Therefore, after importing the CAD model of the
component, first a fast feasibility study should be performed. In this system, it is done in the AutoForm
OneStep (AF-OS) module. In the AutoForm, this formability analysis can be done even if we do not have

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 9th International Conference on Technology of Plasticity
Geongju-Korea, 7-11. September 2008.

any, or just very little information on the forming tools. By this inverse, One-Step simulation, a quick
decision can be made if any modification of the part is required. If this feasibility study is successful, the
next step is the determination of the the optimum blank shape and sizes which is very efficiently supported
by the system.
3.3.2 Determination of the optimum blank
The optimum blank determination is particularly important when we have such a complicated part,
where besides the expected intricate contour line, we have to consider the joined shape of left and right
handed, double attached parts, as well. The precise determination of optimum blank is important from other
points of view as well. As it can be seen from the CAD model of the part, a trimming operation is
practically impossible when the part is already formed due to its complex 3D part boundary line. Therefore,
we have to apply a blank geometry which does not need any trimming operation in spite of the complicated
3D forming operations, i.e. when the forming is finished, we have the required part boundary line within
the prescribed tolerances. Furthermore, this optimum blank is also necessary for the determination of
material utilization, which can be done in the Nesting and Blank-layout module. This is also an important
starting information for the detailed, incremental forming simulation.
3.3.3 Die Design and detailed incremental
process simulations
Even the One-Step simulation resulted in good
formability, the final decision on the whole process
can be made only after performing a detailed
incremental modeling particularly concerning the
critical forming steps. For this detailed simulation we
need very detailed knowledge on forming tools and
process parameters. The active surfaces of the
forming tools can be derived from the imported
surface model of the component to be produced utiliz-
Fig. 3. Reference surface to derive the tool
ing the many useful possibilities offered by the Die-
surfaces
Designer module to create the binder and addendum
surfaces, as well as the so-called reference surface,
which can be used to quickly derive the punch and
die surfaces, as well (Fig. 3.). Obviously, even for
the detailed, incremental simulation, we just need
the tool surfaces of active tool elements (punches
and dies), as shown in Fig. 4. Applying this
simulation tool setup, incremental simulation can be
performed with various process parameters and
depending on the simulation results several
modifications on the tool parameters can be also
made. Thus, for example, we have to modify the
binder surface to reduce the drawing depth and by
this, the value of critical strains, or we have to
change the tool radii at certain critical sections to
avoid undesirable thinning, or splitting, etc. These
modifications can be performed within the
AutoForm package just returning back to the Die
Designer module. During this incremental
Fig. 4. Simulation tool setup for the incremental simulations, the effect of process parameters, and the
process simulation necessity of applying special forming operations can
be decided. For example, for this components
defect-free parts could be produced only using so-called free cut-off lines in the middle of the double
attached part to provide free deformation in the scrap region to avoid unacceptable defects on the parts as
shown in Fig. 5.

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 9th International Conference on Technology of Plasticity
Geongju-Korea, 7-11. September 2008.

Separating the left and right parts, the cut-off lines

and splitting in the scrap zone are removed and we
have the components with the required quality. After
getting the defect free component with some tool and
process parameter changes, we can complete the die
design task on the basis of simulation results. For this
purpose, the final reference geometry is exported
back to the Unigraphics CAD system through the
reverse AF-UG interface module to design the com-
plete tool assembly. In this case, we have the reverse
problem, as we had when importing the part model.
For the tool design we need solid models: however,
Fig. 5. Defect free double attached part
the exported reference geometry is a surface model,
with cut-off lines
which should be converted to a solid one.

4 Conclusions

Computer aided engineering has a vital and central role in the recent developments in sheet metal
forming concerning the whole product development cycle, and particularly in the tool design phase. The
application of various methods and techniques of CAE activities resulted in significant developments:
the formerly trial-and-error based workshop practice has been continuously transformed into a science-
based and technology driven engineering solution.
In this paper, an integrated simulation based die design concept has been described. Implementing
this concept in tool making practice, it results in shorter lead times, better performance and significant
reduction in associated costs.

Acknowledgements

This research work was financed by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) and the National
Science Foundation (Ref. No.: OTKA NI 61724). Both financial supports are gratefully acknowledged.

References

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Fabr., 1995, 104-108.
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[9] Waltl, H., Vette, W., Griesbach, B.: Toolmaking for Future Car Bodies, IDDRG 2007, Győr,
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