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Self-piercing riveting (SPR) has been used in production to join sheet materials since the early 1990s. A large amount of experimental trial work was required in order to determine an appropriate combination of rivet and anvil design to fulfill the required joint parameters. The presented study is describing the methodology of SPR joint design based on numerical simulation and experimental methods of defining required simulation input parameters. The required inputs are the stress-strain curves of sheet materials and rivets for the range of strains taking place in the SPR joining process, parameters required for a fracture model for all involved materials, and friction parameters for all interfaces of SPR process. In the current study, the normalized Cockroft-Latham fracture criterion was used for predicting fracture. Custom hole and tube expansion tests were used for predicting fracture of the riveted materials and the rivet, respectively.

Design of sheet metal drawing processes requires accurate information about the distribution of restraining forces, which is usually accomplished by a set of drawbeads positioned along the perimeter of the die cavity. This study is targeting bringing together the results of finite element analysis and experimental data in order to understand the most critical factors influencing the restraining force. The experimental study of the restraining force was performed using drawbead simulator tool installed into a tensile testing machine. Based upon the experimental results, it was observed that the restraining force of the given drawbead configuration is dependent upon the depth of bead penetration, friction between the drawbead surfaces as well as the clearance between the flanges of the drawbead simulator. This clearance is often adjusted during stamping operations to increase or decrease material inflow into the die cavity without any modification in the die.

In recent years, dual phase (DP) Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) and Ultra High Strength Steels (UHSS) are considered as prominent materials in the automotive industry due to superior structural performance and vehicle weight reduction capabilities. However, these materials are often sensitive to trimmed edge cracking if stretching along sheared edge occurs in such processes as stretch flanging. Another major issue in the trimming of UHSS is tool wear because of higher contact pressures at the interface between cutting tools and sheet metal blank caused by UHSS’s higher flow stresses and the presence of a hard martensitic phase in the microstructure. The objective of the current paper is to study the influence of trimming conditions and tool wear on quality and stretchability of trimmed edge of DP980 steel sheet. For this purpose, mechanically trimmed edges were characterized for DP980 steel and compared with other steels such as HSLA 350 and BH210.

In recent years, implementation of dual phase (DP) Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) and Ultra High Strength Steels (UHSS) is increasing in automotive components due to their superior structural performance and vehicle weight reduction capabilities. However, these materials are often sensitive to trimmed edge cracking if stretching along sheared edge occurs in such processes as stretch flanging. Tool wear is another major issue in the trimming of UHSS because of higher contact pressures at the interface between cutting tools and sheet metal blank caused by UHSS’s higher flow stresses and the presence of a hard martensitic in the microstructure. The objective of the present paper is to study the influence of trimming conditions and tool wear on quality of trimmed edge of DP980 steel sheet. For this purpose, mechanically trimmed edges were characterized for DP980 steel, sheared with six different cutting clearances (from 4% to 40% of the sheet thickness).

Stamping die design recommendations attempt to limit the production of burrs through accurate alignment of the upper and lower trimming edges. For aluminum automotive exterior panels, this translates to a clearance less than 0.1 mm. However, quality of sheared edge and its stretchability are affected by stiffness of the cutting tool against opening of the clearance between the shearing edges. The objective of the study is to investigate the influence of stiffness of trimming or piercing dies against opening of the cutting clearance on sheared edge stretchability of aluminum blanks 6111-T4. For experimental study, one side of the sample had sheared surface obtained by the trimming process while the other side of the sample had a smooth surface achieved by metal finish. Burr heights of the sheared edge after different trimming configurations with 10% clearance were measured.

In recent years, implementation of dual phase (DP) Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) and Ultra High Strength Steels (UHSS) is increasing in automotive components due to their superior structural performance and vehicle weight reduction capabilities. However, these materials are often sensitive to trimmed edge cracking if stretching along sheared edge occurs in such processes as stretch flanging. Tool wear is another major issue in the trimming of UHSS because of higher contact pressures at the interface between cutting tools and sheet metal blank caused by UHSS’s higher flow stresses and the presence of a hard martensitic in the microstructure. The objective of the present paper is to discuss the methodology of analyzing die wear for trimming operations of UHSS components and illustrate it with some examples of tool wear analysis for trimming 1.5mm thick DP980 steel.

Multiple experimental studies were performed on galling intiation for variety of tooling materials, coatings and surface treatments, sheet materials with various surface textures and lubrication. Majority of studies were performed for small number of samples in laboratory conditions. In this paper, the methodology of screening experiment using different combinations of tooling configurations and sheet material in the lab followed by the high volume small scale U-bend performed in the progressive die on the mechanical press is discussed. The experimental study was performed to understand the effect of the interface between the sheet metal and the die surface on sheet metal flow during stamping operations. Aluminum sheet AA5754 2.5mm thick was used in this experimentation. The sheet was tested in laboratory conditions by pulling between two flat insert with controllable clamping force and through the drawbead system with variable radii of the female bead.