Virtual die spotting: Advanced setup for coupling of forming and structure simulation

• Published in: IOP conference series. Materials Science and Engineering 2021-06, Vol.1157 (1), p.12028
• Main Authors: Zgoll, F, Götze, T, Volk, W
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Automobile industry; Automotive bodies; Deflection; Die making; Die stamping; Dies; Elastic deformation; Machining; Simulation; Substitutes; Surface chemistry
• ISSN: 1757-8981; 1757-899X
• DOI: 10.1088/1757-899X/1157/1/012028

Shorter product life cycles and increasing product variety in the automotive industry are leading to increasing pressure on manufacturing of stamping dies for car body parts. A high amount of manual rework is needed to meet product quality, which is one of the main drivers for long production time and high cost. The long-term goal is to meet quality requirements directly after machining of the active tool surfaces to reduce the manual rework needed to a bare minimum. This can only be achieved by taking elastic deformations of tools and press into account during the virtual die making process. To predict the deflection at the active surfaces during the forming process, a conventional forming simulation with rigid tools is coupled with a structure simulation using elastic tools and press. For the accurate representation of the deflection behaviour of the real press, substitute models of moving bolster and ram are used, which are based on press measurement data. In this paper, different press deformation characteristics are presented, and the viability of the universal FE substitute model is evaluated. Further, advanced settings for the coupled FE simulation are discussed and the simulation results are validated with experimentally determined data.