Optimization of drawbead restraining forces and drawbead design in sheet metal forming process

This paper presents an optimization procedure of drawbead restraining forces in order to improve the sheet metal formability in deep drawing process. A simplified finite element method called inverse approach (IA) has been developed for sheet forming analysis with the consideration of the drawbead restraining forces. This IA is combined with a mathematical programming algorithm to optimize the restraining forces and then to design the drawbeads. The obtained optimization procedure is very efficient due to the simplified assumptions of the IA and the analytical sensitivity analysis. The Square cup of Numisheet’93 and the Renault Twingo dashpot cup are presented to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed optimization procedure for industrial applications. Verifications of the obtained results have been carried out using a precise incremental commercial code OPTRISTM based on explicit dynamic approach to show the effectiveness of our approach.