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Blank optimization for sheet metal forming using multi-step finite element
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Article  in  The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology · February 2008

DOI: 10.1007/s00170-008-1383-y

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Int J Adv Manuf Technol
DOI 10.1007/s00170-008-1383-y
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Blank optimization for sheet metal forming using multi-step
finite element simulations
Jyhwen Wang & Amit Goel & Fengchen Yang &
Jenn-Terng Gau
Received: 2 March 2007 / Accepted: 4 January 2008
# Springer-Verlag London Limited 2008
Abstract The present study aims to determine the optimum
blank shape design for deep drawing of arbitrary shaped
cups with a uniform trim allowance at the flange, i.e., cups
without ears. The earing, or non-uniform flange, is caused
by non-uniform material flow and planar anisotropy in the
sheet. In this research, a new method for optimum blank
shape design using finite element analysis is proposed. The
deformation process is first divided into multiple steps. A
shape error metric is defined to measure the amount of
earing and to compare the deformed shape and target shape
set for each stage of the analysis. This error metric is then
used to decide whether the blank needs to be modified. The
blank geometry change is based on material flow. The cycle
is repeated until the converged results are achieved. This
iterative design process leads to optimal blank shape. To test
the proposed method, three examples of cup drawing are
presented. In every case converged results are achieved after a
few iterations. The proposed systematic method for optimal
blank design is found to be very effective in the deep drawing
process and can be further applied to other sheet metal
forming applications such as stamping processes.
J. Wang (*)
Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial
Distribution, Texas A&M University,
College Station, TX, USA
e-mail: jwang@tamu.edu
J. Wang : A. Goel
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University,
College Station, TX, USA
F. Yang : J.-T. Gau
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Northern Illinois University,
DeKalb, IL, USA
Keywords Blank optimization . Metal forming simulation
1 Introduction
Sheet metal forming is a widely used manufacturing
process for the fabrication of various products in many
industries. In this process, a flat metal blank is placed
between the blank holder and the die. The blank is
deformed by the action of a punch forcing the material
into the die cavity. Upon completion of the forming
process, trimming is generally required to remove the
“ears” -the wavy opening of the wall or non-uniform flange
(Fig. 1). It is known that earing is more prominent in deep
drawing process where deformation of the blank before
entering the die cavity is more significant. These “ears” are
formed due to non-ideal initial blank geometry, non-
uniform material flow, and material anisotropy.
Earing is highly undesirable not only because it adds on
an additional trimming operation but also because the
uneven material flow demands extra care as a small
variation in process parameters can result in wrinkling or
tearing. Forming without ears is difficult but not impossi-
ble. One of the approaches to prevent ear formation is to
find an initial blank shape, referred to the optimal blank
shape, to produce a final product with uniform flange.
Since the optimal blank design is an attractive option to
obtain uniform flange, many investigations have been
carried out to obtain the optimal blank geometry that could
be deformed into the desired net shape. Chung and
Richmond [1, 2] proposed a direct design method and its
theoretical basis, called ideal forming theory, to get an
initial blank shape. However, real forming conditions such
as blank holder force, friction force, tool geometry, etc. are
not considered so the calculated blank shape had some

Fig. 1 (a) A cup with “ears”
and (b) non-uniform flange
shape error. No effort was made to address the earing issue.
Park et al. [3] suggested a method that requires finite
element (FE) analysis to obtain an optimum blank shape. In
this method, the ideal forming theory is used in combina-
tion with a deformation path iteration method. Chung et al.
[4] developed a sequential design procedure to optimize
sheet-forming processes based on ideal forming theory, FE
analysis and experimental trials. They used this procedure
to design a blank shape for a highly anisotropic aluminum
alloy sheet that resulted in a deep draw circular cup with
minimum earing. Sowerby et al. [5], Blount et al. [6],
Gerdeen and Chen [7] have used geometric mapping
method to determine the blank shape. In geometric
mapping method, the final geometry of a sheet metal part
that is to be drawn is mapped point by point back to a flat
blank. Similar to ideal forming method, geometric mapping
method does not take critical forming condition (such as
friction) into account. To improve the accuracy, Parsa and
Pournia [8] and Tang et al. [9] developed inverse mapping
techniques based on energy theories to predict and optimize
initial blank shape for deep drawing.
Toshiko et al. [10], Gloeckl and Lange [11], Duncan and
Sowerby [12], Chen and Sowerby [13] have used slip line
field method to obtain an optimum blank shape. The slip
line field theory assumes plain strain condition and is
considered suitable only for non-hardening materials. Liu
and Sowerby [14] proposed a method based on potential
flow to establish the optimum blank shape for prismatic cup
drawing. Lo and Lee [15] tried to improve upon this
potential flow method by introducing the effects of friction
and material anisotropy. However, in this potential flow
approach, the material hardening effects are not considered.
Agrawal et al. [16] used upper bound method to model
deep drawing and calculate cup height around the cup
opening. The blank geometry was optimized based on the
cup height variation. Due to the multiple unknowns in the
complex velocity fields, thinning effect was not studied.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
Kim and Kobayashi [17] proposed a method to deter-
mine blank geometry for rectangular cup drawing oper-
ations. By calculating the flow line of the material point,
the blank optimization is achieved. Chung and Shah [18]
used finite element simulation in conjunction with the six-
component Barlat yield criterion to simulate earing forma-
tion. The main focus of the study was to verify the
performance of planar anisotropy of the Barlat’s criterion.
Barlat et al. [19] suggested an inverse design approach in
conjunction with a mathematical technique to obtain an
optimum blank. They took into consideration the actions of
the tools in contact with the blank sheet and planar
anisotropy of the material. Hu et al. [20] explained the
effect of varying planar anisotropy on ear patterns. They
proposed a method of controlling the magnitude of earing
though no attempt was made to optimize the shape of the
blank required to produce a product of desired shape and
performance.
Gea and Ramamurthy [21] have proposed a numerical
scheme to maximize the drawability and to determine the
optimal starting blank design for square cupping operation.
Fracture failure and draw-in failure have been studied to
maximize the drawability. Ohata et al. [22] proposed a
method called finite element based “sweeping simplex
method” to find the optimum condition of the sheet metal
forming processes which includes lubrication, blank shape,
die and punch shapes, forming schedule and material.
Various optimization approaches were presented for blank
development. Cai et al. [23], Sattari et al. [24], and Yeh et al.
[25], obtained optimized blank geometry through non-linear
programming, sequential quadratic programming, and fuzzy
inference techniques, respectively.
In cup drawing without flange, Iseki and Murota [26]
used a numerical modeling approach to determine the shape
of the blank that can be drawn to a non-circular cup with
uniform height. Mamalis et al. [27–29] used the finite
element techniques to study the effect of material and
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
forming characteristics in sheet metal forming processes.
Examples of square cup and cylindrical cup have been
investigated. No effort has been made to optimize the blank
shape. Shim et al. [30–32] used sensitivity analysis methods
along with finite element code to derive the optimum blank
shape design. These methods need a few deformation
analyses at each design step to reach the optimum blank
shape. Son and Shim [33] proposed a new method that
initial nodal velocity of boundary nodes was used to obtain
an optimal blank shape. In this method, the ratio of initial
velocity to the whole path length during deformation is
utilized. In conjunction with the use of finite element code,
an inverse method was proposed by Iseki et al. [34] and Lee
[35], a backward tracing method was developed by Kim
et al. [36], and a volume addition or subtraction method
was used by Kim et al. [37] for blank optimization.
Xueshan and Bingwen [38] and Zhaotao and Bingwen
[39] used fluid analogy and electrical analogue method to
analyze and design irregular shape cup drawing.
Various iterative finite element based design and analysis
methods were also reported [40–48]. From these previous
efforts, it can be concluded that finite element simulation is
an effective tool to evaluate blank design. With computer
simulation, the number of costly tooling tryouts can be
minimized. However, to reduce the computational effort, it
is still important to devise efficient algorithms to direct the
search of an optimal blank geometry.
This paper presents a multi-step methodology to improve
the efficiency of blank optimization. The details of the
proposed method are presented in Sect. 2. The optimization
process is best illustrated by examples and three examples
of blank optimization are presented in Sect. 3. Section 4 is a
brief conclusion.
2 The proposed optimization methodology
The aim in blank optimization is to design a blank
geometry that upon the completion of the forming process,
a part is produced with the required shape and a uniform
flange. As the issue of non-uniform flange is more
prevalent in deep drawing, discussions presented in this
paper are based on deep drawing examples. In the deep
drawing process, the blank geometry, material properties,
tooling geometry, and process condition such as friction
and blank holder force all play important roles in the final
result. To optimize the blank geometry, the proven finite
element simulation technique is to be used to evaluate the
blank design. As shown in Fig. 2, an iterative design-
analysis process is used to approach the optimal solution.
The deep drawing process is divided into multiple steps
shown as the outer loop in the flow chart. Within each
•Initial blank geometry
•Required cup geometry
•Intermediate flange contours
Step
i=1
Finite element forming simulation
Calculate total shape error
Total shape error <
no
Shape error allowance ? Modify blank
yes
no
Set step Final step
i=i+1 completed ?
yes
End
Fig. 2 Flow chart for multi-steps blank optimization
stage, the optimization process in the inner loop involves
three key steps: 1) conducting finite element simulation, 2)
determining shape error, and 3) modifying blank geometry
if necessary.
2.1 Multi-step blank optimization
The premise of the proposed multi-step blank optimization
approach is that, during the drawing process, the material
should flow into the die cavity smoothly and the shape of
the flange should gradually converge to the uniform
geometry. Therefore, it is desirable to divide the forming
process into multiple steps and design intermediate flange
contour for each stage. As shown in Fig. 3, these flange
contours serve as the targets for blank optimization at each
stage. For a given final cup geometry, the intermediate
target contour represents the flange geometry at intermedi-
ate draw depth. The target contour can be the offsets to the
final contour of the flange. Since the blank is “optimized”
gradually at each stage, it would show comparatively less
deviation from the final flange contour when drawn to the
final depth. As the non-ideal blank can cause significant
deviation in early stages and the deviation is rectified very
easily in a shorter time, splitting up the process into
multiple steps helps in achieving the optimal blank with
less computational efforts. In the present work, there is no
fixed criterion to decide upon the number of the stages.
Figure 3 shows that the first stage is set at about the middle

Fig. 3 Examples of target
contours for multi-step blank
optimization
of the initial blank contour and the final target. At the end
of each stage, a different blank (from the initial blank) is
obtained and will be used as the starting blank for the next
stage.
It should be noted that another advantage offered by the
present approach is that the proposed method also facili-
tates the search for a feasible blank early in the design
process. A non-ideal blank that causes punch out or
wrinkling failure at the end of the punch stroke will be
corrected in the initial stage such that a feasible blank shape
can be further optimized.
Within a stage, finite element simulation is conducted to
form the flat blank to the given target contour in iterations.
As it is impossible to have the deformed flange overlaps on
top of the target contour exactly, the finite element
simulation is set to terminate when one of the edge nodes
reaches the target contour. At this condition, the evaluation
of the flange uniformity is performed and the evaluation
involves the concept of shape error.
2.2 Shape error
In this work, shape error is introduced to quantify the
deviation of the deformed flange contour from the target
flange contour. The shape error is defined as the distances
between the nodal points of the deformed contour and the
corresponding nodal points supposed to be on the target
contour. The overall shape error after forming simulation
can be calculated from the arithmetic mean value, μa, or the
root mean square average μq:
1 Xn
μa ¼ jd j
i¼1 i
ð1Þ
n

X 1=
1 n 2
μq ¼ 2
di ð2Þ
n i¼1
where di is the distance from the deformed contour to the
target contour for nodal point i and n is the total number of
contour nodal points. In the finite element simulation, it is
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
impossible to achieve an exact match between the deformed
flange and the target flange. Therefore, a preset shape error
allowance, ɛ , is used for decision making. At the end of
each simulation (iteration), the overall shape error is
calculated and compared against the shape error allowance.
If the overall shape error is greater than the allowance, the
blank should be modified and the iterative process should
continue. If the overall shape error is less than or equal to
the allowance, then it can be concluded that the blank is
“optimized” for that particular stage. Upon the successful
evaluation of the final stage (i.e., ma final < "), the overall
blank optimization is achieved.
2.2.1 Modification of blank
At the end of each forming simulation, non-uniform flange
with overall shape error greater than the allowance requires
corrections. The basic idea used in the modification of a
blank is that the material is added to, or subtracted from, the
current blank wherever it has been found less or more,
respectively, by comparing the deformed flange contour
and the target contour.
Figure 4 shows the material flow of a node on the
boundary of the blank. I, F, T, and M are collections of
boundary nodes of the initial blank contour (I ), the
deformed flange contour (F ), the target contour (T ), and
⇀
the modified blank contour (M), respectively. The vectors Ii
⇀
and Fi represent the initial and final nodal positions of node
i. Since the deformation can be nonlinear for a given blank
⇀
and cup geometry, the node at Ii may move along a non-
⇀
linear deformation path to Fi . Consequently, the direction of
material flow can change through time. Instead of using the
boundary nodal flow velocity for blank optimization [33],
the present work uses the geometry-based flow direction
and the nodal shape error to effectively correct the non-
uniform flange. In order to correct the blank geometry for
the next iteration, the distance between a nodal point on the
⇀
deformed contour, Fi , and the corresponding nodal point
⇀
supposed to be on the target contour, Ti , is measured. The
supposed position of a node (represented by a vector) on
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Fig. 4 Material flow and flange ACTUAL DEFORMATION PATH

nodal movement in deep
INITIAL CONTOUR LINEARIZED PATH
drawing

M I

r
DI

F
DEFORMED CONTOUR

T
r MODIFIED CONTOUR
DL

TARGET CONTOUR

the target contour is determined by taking the intersection element code LS-DYNA was used in the simulations. The
of the line of nodal material flow in the last FEA time step, numerical simulation parameters (such as mesh size, element
⇀
DLðiÞ , and the target contour. With the distance known, the type, punch velocity, contact definition, coefficient of friction,
position of the node on the current blank before deforma- etc.) were evaluated. The simulation techniques were validat-
tion is modified by the same distance along the line of the ed (not shown in this paper) by comparing the wall thickness
⇀
initial material flow, DI ðiÞ , of that particular node in the first profile predicted by the FEA and that of a typical deep drawn
FEA time step in that simulation. Mathematically, the cup. With a good agreement, the FEA techniques were used to
modification of the blank can be expressed as: simulate cup drawing processes in the examples. The initial
blank design is generated by applying the line analysis and the
* * 
* graphics method proposed in the SME Die design handbook
T i ¼ Int F i ; DLðiÞ ; T ð3Þ
[49]. Due to symmetry, either a quarter model or a half
model was used to reduce computation time. The coordinate
* *  values of the nodes on the flange were collected from FEA
di ¼ Dist T i ; F i ð4Þ results. Computer programs written in MATLAB were used
to calculate the shape error and to modify blank geometry
based on the FEA data.
* * *
M i ¼ I i
di DI ðiÞ ð5Þ

where Int is a function to calculate the intersection of the

⇀
final nodal position Fi moving along the material flow
⇀ Table 1 Material properties of the blank used in FEA simulation
direction DI ðiÞ intersecting the target contour (T); Dist is a
function to calculate the distance between two points; di is Property Value
⇀ ⇀ ⇀
the distance calculated from nodes Ti and Fi ; Mi is the
Sheet material Mild steel
position of node i on the modified blank. The sign (±) in Young’s modulus(GPa) 210
Eq. (5) indicates that material is subtracted from or added to Mass density( g/cc) 7.80
the existing blank for correction. Poisson’s ratio 0.30
Initial yield stress(MPa) 286
R0 2.15
3 Blank optimization examples R45 1.78
R90 2.43
Coulomb coefficient of friction 0.10
To test the proposed methodology, blank optimization was
Stress strain relation(MPa) σ=565.32(0.007177 + ɛp) 0.2589
conducted in three deep drawing examples. Explicit finite
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

a 70
Initial Blank
Deformed contour
Target contour 60
First modified blank

50

Z coordinate(mm)
40

30

20

10

0
-70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0
- X coordinate(mm)

b
First modified blank 70
Deformed contour
First target contour
Second modified blank 60
Fig. 5 Tooling geometry for the square cup drawing example
50

Z coordinate(mm)
3.1 Square cups
40

The proposed methodology was used to optimize the blank

30
for deep drawing of a square cup. The material properties of
the blank used in the simulations are shown in Table 1. The
20
tooling geometry, the process parameters are shown in
Fig. 5 and Table 2. The initial blank was designed to be 10
circular having a diameter of 130.68 mm based on the line
analysis technique. Three intermediate flange contours 0
-70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0
offset from the target were also designed.
- X coordinate(mm)
To obtain the desired cup height of 35 mm, the initial c 70
blank was modified based on a preliminary simulation. As
Second modified blank
show in Fig. 6a, the initial blank was drawn 35 mm deep to Deformed contour
60
deformed contour. Comparing the Deformed contour to the Second target contour
Third modified blank
target contour and correcting the blank geometry, the first
50
Z coordinate(mm)

40

Table 2 Tooling geometry and process parameters used in square cup

30
drawing simulation

Parameter Value 20

Punch velocity(mm/s) 2.0E+03

10
Blank holder force(KN) 12.0
Shell thickness(mm) 0.84
Width of punch, WP(mm) 55.0 -70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10
0
0
Width of die, Wd(mm) 58.5 -X coordinate(mm)
Punch profile radius, Rp(mm) 4.0
Die profile radius, Rd(mm) 8.0 Fig. 6 (a) Modification of the initial blank geometry (example 1), b
Punch corner radius, Rc(mm) 15.0 Modification of the blank in the 1st simulation run in step 1 (example
Cup height(mm) 35.0 1), c Modification of the blank in the 1st simulation run in step 2
(example 1)
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

a
70
Fifth modified blank
Deformed contour
Final target contour 60

50

Z coordinate(mm)
40

30

20

10

0
-70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0
-X coordinate(mm)

Fig. 9 Tooling geometry for the round cup drawing example

b

modified blank is obtained. Figures 6b and c show the

simulation results and the blanks modifications in the first
simulation runs in stage 1 and stage 2, respectively. With a
total of eight iterations, the optimized blank and the
deformed cup are shown in Fig. 7. In the optimization
process, the shape error allowance was set at 0.25 mm. The
shape error history throughout the iterations is shown in
Fig. 8. It can be seen that the shape error was reduced to
below 0.25 mm (shape error allowance) at iteration 3, 5,
and 8. In other words, the deformed contours at iteration 3,
5, and 8 were very close to the intermediate target contours
(stage 1 and stage 2) and the desired final contour (stage 3).
Using the present blank modification procedure without
assigning intermediate target contours (i.e., single stage
optimization), there was an increase of 1.3% in CPU time.
Fig. 7 (a) Optimized blank for a 35 mm height square cup (example
1), (b) A deep drawn square cup with uniform flange (example 1)

Table 3 Tooling geometry and process parameters used in round cup

drawing simulation
12
Parameter Value
10
Shape error(mm)

8 Punch velocity(mm/s) 2.0E+03

6 Blank holder force(KN) 12.0
Blank thickness(mm) 0.84
4
Diameter of punch, DP(mm) 90.0
2 Diameter of die, Dd(mm) 93.5
0 Punch profile radius, Rp(mm) 6.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Die profile radius, Rd(mm) 8.0
Iteration number
Cup height(mm) 35.0
Fig. 8 Shape error history in blank optimization (example 1)
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

70
a
0
-90 -80 -70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 Case 1
Case 2 60
-10
Case 3
-20 50

Z coordinate (mm)
-30
-Z coordiante(mm)

40

-40
30
-50

20
-60

First modified blank -70 10

Deformed contour
Final target contour -80
Second modified blank 0
-70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0
-90
-X coordinate (mm)
-X coordinate(mm)
Fig. 12 Optimized blanks for anisotropic materials (example 2)

b 0
-90 -80 -70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 The result of blank optimization also showed that the
-10 optimized blank for deep drawing of a square cup with
large corner radius (Rc), the blank shape is close to circular.
-20
This finding agrees well with that of Gea and Ramamurthy
[21].
-30
-Z coordinate(mm)

-40
3.2 Round cups

-50 In the second example, blank optimization was conducted

for deep drawing of a round cup. The material properties
-60 are shown in Table 1 and the tooling geometry and process
parameters are shown in Fig. 9 and Table 3. The deep
-70 drawing process was again divided into three stages
Third modified blank
Deformed contour -80
Final target contour
-90
-X coordinate(mm)
Fig. 10 (a) Modification of the blank in the 2nd iteration (example 2),
(b) Optimized blank for a round cup (example 2)

8
Shape error(mm)

7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Iteration number
Fig. 11 Shape error history in blank optimization (example 2) Fig. 13 Deep drawn cup geometry for Example 3
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Table 4 Tooling geometry and process parameters for example 3 The proposed method was used to optimize the blank
Parameter Value with various anisotropic properties. As the deformation
process depends on the anisotropy of the blank material,
Punch velocity (mm/s) 3000 Fig. 12 shows that non-circular blanks are to be used to
Blank holder force (KN) 24.0 achieve uniform (circular) flange in deep drawing of a
Shell thickness (mm) 0.84
round cup. The R-values representing planar anisotropy
Width of punch, Wp (mm) 240.0
(R0, R45, R90) are (2.15, 1.78, 2.43), (1.00, 1.00, 1.00), and
Width of die, Wd (mm) 243.5
Punch profile radius, Rp (mm) 16.0 (0.70, 2.50, 1.20) for Cases 1, 2, and 3, respectively. In
Die profile radius, Rd (mm) 8.0 metal container (beverage can) making, the aluminum sheet
Punch corner radius, Rc (mm) 20.0 used for cup drawing and ironing is produced from cold
Cup height (mm) 45.0 rolling that imposes anisotropy. Instead of using a try-and-
error approach, the proposed method can be adopted to
design a non-circular blank for cup drawing efficiently and
represented by two intermediate target contours and the final effectively.
desired contour. Figure 10a and b show the blank modifica-
tion at the second iteration and the optimized blank from the 3.3 Cups of arbitrary shape
last FE simulation. It can be observed from the shape error
history (Fig. 11) that the blank was optimized in six The proposed method can be used to optimize blanks in
iterations and the deformed flange contours closely matched deep drawing of cups with arbitrary shape. In the third
the desired contours at the end of iteration 3 (stage 1), 4 example, the cup geometry and the process parameters are
(stage 2), and 6 (the final stage). Using the present blank shown in Fig. 13 and Table 4. As the cup was half
modification procedure without assigning intermediate target symmetry, half models were used in the finite element
contours (i.e., single stage optimization), there was an simulation. The initial blank design was a circle with a
increase of 6.6% in CPU time. radius of 190 mm. Two intermediate target contours were

Fig. 14 (a) Modification of the

blank in the 3rd iteration (ex-
ample 3), (b) Optimized blank
for example 3 cup
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Fig. 15 Shape error history in Shape error

blank optimization (example 3)
35
30

Shape error (mm)

25
20
15
10
5
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Iteration number

used. Figure 14a shows the third iteration blank modifica-
tion, and Fig. 14b shows the final blank obtained. As
shown in Fig. 15, the optimization took eight iterations and
the shape error converged to the pre-determined shape error
allowance of 0.27 mm while achieving the final cup
geometry. The deformed geometry with the thickness plot
of the cup from the finite element simulation is shown in
Fig. 16.
4 Conclusions
A simple but very effective method is proposed to derive
the optimal blank shape for deep drawing of a cup having a
uniform flange. In the proposed method, the deformation
process can be divided into multiple steps. An intermediate
flange contour is assigned as the target for blank optimi-
zation at each stage. In the optimization process, a shape
error is calculated by comparing the deformed contour of
the blank and the desired target contour. Based on the
characteristics of the material flow, the blank geometry is
repeatedly modified until the shape error is within a pre-
determined tolerance. The blank modification method was
used in single stage and multiple steps blank optimizations.
It was found that, in simple deep drawing, dividing the
deformation process into stages and correcting blank
geometry early can reduce total CPU time in finite element
simulation.
Theoretically, earing can be reduced or eliminated by using
the optimized blank derived from tooling geometry, process
parameters, and material properties. From the presented
examples, it is shown that the optimal blank for a square cup
with large corner radius is close to a circular shape. With
planar anisotropy, a non-circular blank can be used to produce
a circular cup with uniform flange. As demonstrated, the
proposed method is an effective tool for optimal blank design
in deep drawing. The method can also be efficient and
effective in optimizing blanks in complex stamping.

Fig. 16 Deformed geometry

and the thickness plot of
example 3 cup
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
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