Experimental investigation of piercing of high-strength steels within a critical range of slant angle

Abstract

Deep drawn parts often do have complex designs and, therefore, must be trimmed or punched subsequently in a second stage. Due to the complex part geometry, most punching areas do reveal critical slant angle (angle between part surface and ram movement direction) different to perpendicular direction. Piercing within a critical range of slant angle may lead to severe damage of the cutting tool. Consequently, expensive cam units are required to transform the ram moving direction in order to perform the piercing process perpendicularly to the local part surface. For modern sheet metals, however, the described critical angle of attack has not been investigated adequately until now. Therefore, cam units are used in cases in which regular piercing with high slant angle wouldn't be possible. Purpose of this study is to investigate influencing factors and their effect on punch damage during piercing of high strength steels with slant angles. Therefore, a modular shearing tool was designed, which allows to simply switch die parts to vary cutting clearance and cutting angle. The target size of the study is to measure the lateral deviation of the punch which is monitored by an eddy current sensor. The sensor is located in the downholder and measures the lateral punch deviation in-line during manufacturing. The deviation is mainly influenced by slant angle of workpiece surface. In relation to slang angle and sheet thickness the clearance has a small influence on the measured punch deflection.