Tool life in cold forging – an example of design improvement to increase service life

The production cost for cold forgings depends significantly on the tool life. This paper summarizes an investigation of different alternatives to improve the life of a tungsten carbide insert used in a cold forming operation performed on an automatic cold header. These alternatives were as follows: (a) double tapered insert, (b) split insert design, and (c) change of insert material. Although, the techniques were applied to a specific case, they might he applicable to other cold forging tooling. To improve the life of the insert, the metal flow and stress analysis of the carbide insert was conducted using the commercial FEM software DEFORM.