Numerical and experimental investigation of redrawing of sheet metals

Section analysis has been recognized as a valuable and numerically efficient technique applicable in sheet metal part and process design. The current work is part of the activities at the Engineering Research Center for Net Shape Manufacturing (ERC/NSM) aiming at placing part and process design in sheet metal forming on a sound scientific basis. In this paper, it is demonstrated how section analysis can be used in the process sequence design for round sheet metal parts. The section analysis program SECTIONFORM was extended to handle forward and reverse redrawing operations. A tooling to perform reverse redrawing operations on a multi-action press has been designed and built. Several aluminum alloys have been formed and used to verify the accuracy of simulation results from SECTIONFORM. In addition, the two-dimensional simulation results were compared with results from the commercial three-dimensional sheet metal forming analysis program PAM-STAMP. The benefits of employing section analysis instead of three-dimensional analysis are discussed.