On the use of SLS Tools in Sheet Metal Stamping

G. N. Levy (I), R. Schindel. P. Schleiss

F . Mmri (2). L. Fratini
Universrty of Applied Saences st. Gallen. M e r l a n d
Dipartimento di TemoQia Mecmnim. Produzione e lngegneria Gestionale. Universlty of P a l e m .
Raly

Abstract
A few rapld tooling tech-ies
have been recently proposed and athem Seledive Laser Sintering
is probably one of the most relevant and promising. In the paper. the authors report some results of a
Hide experimental research on the application of SLS tools in sheet metal forming. A wear test was
carried out to investigate the prqressive degradation of laser-sintered materials in m p a r i s m with
traditional m l & w r k steels. In particular SLS t d s were utilized in a sheet metal stamping process of S
shaped parts: their performances (in t e r m of tool wear and dimensional quallty of the stamped part)
with the ones of traditional tools.
were -red

Keywords:
Rapid, Tooling. Wear

1 INTRODUCTION
Traditional metal stamping processes involve relevant
m s t s linked to the equipments to be utilized and to the
required set-up times. The industrial application of
traditional metal stamping techis therefore
e m c a l t y suitable only for large scale produdion
(mass produdion). where the m s t s linked to die
manufadure and set-up are distributed over a very large
n u m e r of starrped parts. On the other hand in the last
few decades new relevant and irrpellent needs have
arisen such as the produdion of small batches of sheet
metal m r q m e n t s . the inaeasing demand of process
Rexibillty and finally the necesslty to reduce the time to
market of the produds.
The m e n t h e d needs are inmsistent Mh the
traditional metal stamping processes. As a m s e q u e n c e
two major adions are followed: first of all new forming
processes Mich do not require expansive mventional
equipments and time m s u m n g set-up operations have
been recently proposed [MI;
f u r t h e m e rapld tooling
techniques have been recently introduced mainly to
reduce the time to market of new produds [66].
It should be observed that the -em
layer
manufaduring technokgies saentmmlty support the
mncept of Rapld Produd Development. The former
applications of rapld tooling for plastic parts
manufaduring have been successful and the efforts are
ongang irproving materials productrvlty and quallty.
On the other hand. when rapd tooling is aimed to the
produdion of tools for sheet metal stamping no rapld
t d i n g first choice technokgy is evident. T w
approaches can be r e q n k e d : thredimensional
printing
or seledive laser sintering [KIO] optrons.
Layer CNC m t r o l l e d 9 D printing machines are in
development for medium and big sized parts. Small
sized parts may be mt effedivety produced using other
rapld tooling options such as Seledive Laser Sintering.
The research here addressed a i m to explore the use of
SLS (Seledive Laser Sintering) techfor this
applimtion a m d i n g to the adual state of the art and
identny M u r e research diredions.

2 THE FORMING PROCESS

In order to investgate the suitabilrty of SLS tools in sheet
metal stamping a typical deep drawing process of a S
shaped Uchannel with a drawn height of 9 . 5 m was
taken into acmunt. Figure 1 shows a starrped part. The
part geometry was derived from benchmark [82]
proposed at Numsheet 96 Conference [ I I ] .
Adually the stamping process is charademed by a
large amwnt of bending mechanics. while just nearby
the S tums circumferential adions. typlml of a deep
drawing processes. are &served. The utilized material
was a 1. O m thidr ASTM A622 steel with a yield stress
of 347MPa and the fdloMng flow rule:

p a ]

(1)

Figure1 : The starrped part

The tool set was characterized by punch and die radii
equal to 2 . 2 m . The starting blank was shaped in such
a way to follow the part geometry and to reduce material
h i c h undergoes the blankholding adion during the
stamping process. The blanktmlder force level (11kN)
was fixed to obtain an initial blankholder pressure equal
to 2.0% of the material yield stress. An extreme pressure
grease was utilized as lubrimnt. The punch velodty was
equal to 50rrmls.
Prelimnariy a FEM sirmlation of the investgated
process was developed utilizing a dynamc e @ i d
cxxrmeriaal mde [12]. The sirmlation was aimed to
highlight the process mechanics and to estimate the
m t a d pressure both at the punch - sheet metal and at
the die - sheet metal interfaces. Due to the tool set

geometry a polar symmetry was observed; in particular

maximum pressures equal to 250MPa and 174MPa were
found out respectively. Such peaks were localized
nearby the punch and die radii as shown in Figures 2
and 3.

Figure 2: Localization of the maximum contact pressure

on the punch

Figure 3: Localization of the maximum contact pressure

on the die
Another information supplied by the FE simulation was
the sliding velocity distribution of the sheet material over
the dies. In the zones which underwent the maximum
contact pressure values, such velocity ranged between
10mrnls and 45mmls. According to the above data the
stamping process here addressed can be considered as
an effective benchmark to test SLS tools suitability.

3 SLS PARTS MANUFACTURING

The material used for SLS sintering was a commercially
available LaserForm material also known as ST-100.
The LaserForm ST-I00 powder is a mixture of gas
atomised stainless steel metal particles, the stainless
steel alloy 420 (Cr Ni Fe C), mixed with approximately
4% organic binder. The measured d50 particle size was
17.3 pm.
The equipment used was a SLS Sinter station 2500 with
a 50W COP Laser (wavelength 1.064 Lm). The process
includes a preliminary two stage sintering operation to
obtain green parts, followed by thermal sintering in a
high temperature GERO oven. The parts were placed on
taps in appropriate crucibles with accurately weighted
bronze and they were covered with Aluminum oxide
powder. During the Selective Laser Sintering and the
thermal sintering a gas shield of 99.9% NP was used.
The selected benchmark tool design was transferred in
typical STL format files for production to the SLS
machine. The thermal shrinkage scale values for x,y
and z dimensions were assumed equal to 1.027, 1.027
and 1.016.
The official material data after processing published by
the manufacturer are given in Table 1 as point of
reference and complementary information.
ST
Units ASTM ,oo
Powder properties
Density 23

"C

g/cm'

D792

7.7

Mechanical properties
Tensile -Yield strength (0.2%)
Strength
Elongation
Young Modulus
Compression Tensile -Yield
strength
.(0.2%)
Hardness Rockwell "B"
as infiltrated
as machined

MPa
MPa
%
G Pa

E8
E8
E8
E8

305
510
10
137

MPa

E9

317

El8
El8

87
79

Parts
Punch
Die
Holder
geometric
data
File size
KB
407
734
495
Dimensions mm 620 x 59 1100 x 30 1100 x 17
Triangles
8'320
15'024
10'130
Part volume mm' 61'184.1 239'848.3 61'809.6
Table 2: The die set geometrical and file data

Figure 4: a - 3 0 CAD model of die, holder and punch

b - Infiltration tap for the die and the holder

3.2 Sintering Parameters

The green parts were sintered on the DTM Sinter station
2500 with the parameters reported in Table 3.
Layer Thickness
Part Bed Temperature

[mm] 0.08
["C] 93

110 Ratio

[%I 80

Ll R Feed Temperature

["CI 0

Piston Heater Temp.

["CI 0

Cylinder Heater Temp.

Building up rate

["CI 0
[mmlmin] 177

Thermal properties
Thermal Conductivity
100 "C
200 "C
Thermal
Coefficient
0-6(51 - 150 "C)
Expansion XI

Laser Power
Outline Power
Scan spacing
I

mlmloc

E831

12.4

Table 3: SLS Build and Part parameters

3.3 Thermal slnterlng cycle

The thermal sintering cyde was performed in the GERO
HT oven under mtrdled NZ atrmsphere and was
rmnitored by a LabView based terrperature
measurement system at the top and the bottom of the
oven chamber. The peak terrperature was set to 1070
"C and the holding time was 3 hours. The remrded
terrperature is show in Figure 5.
1200

Oven temperdue [TI

---

10520
.

10004

Figure 7. The accuracy of the parts was measured at

several significant check points; both diameter values in
the xy plane and z heights were checked. As far as the
diameters are regarded, an average error value of
0.34rrm Hith a standard deviation of 0 . 1 7 m was
observed. On the other hand the height values showed
an average error of 0 . 0 3 m Mth a standard deviation of
0 . 1 5 m . A better shrinkage fadors tuning m l d
possibly have delivered m e accurate parts. Overall, the
tolerances are good enough for the application here
addressed. the mrrponents assembty was easy and a
gaxl matching was possible. while only trivial r e
machining was needed.

Temperdue setting
Measwed ternperdure

Tlme 1 2 : ~15:lO

18:13 21:17 O D : ~ 3:25

6128

Figure 5: Thermal sintering terrperature path in the oven

3.4 Quallty and Accuracy of the tool parts

The two stage sintering process allowed to build fully

dense parts infiltrated Mth a 80% Cu 20% Sn Bronze
alloy (see Figure 6). Bronze melting m i t i o n s were
reached at a terrperature of 1000C. shortly before the
holding terrperature period in the oven cyde begins. The
measured surface roughness was Ra= 5.8
The denslty and general appearance of the parts were
adequate. Measured intermediate weights and specific
weights parameters for the green and infiltrated parts are
listed in Table 4. The calculated and in effed added
infiltrated bronze (-72%) and allowances are also given.

v.

Green parts
Punck

Green part weight

Green part specific
weight
-

276.2
1

4.514

gm3
I

'

Figure 7: The final die set

The SLS technological p r q r e s s is an ongoing process.
Recent
experience d e m s t r a t e s a
signiticant
irrprovement in quality and precision sintering on the
DTM 2500 Vanguard machine &el
with layer
thidoless of 0.05 m and optimsed parameters.

Bronze Inflltratlon sta !

1'417.0

Infiltration Bronze Wg
Calculated Bronze
weight

4 THE BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

Full denslty parts

Infiltrated part and tabs
g
616
wehht
I

Calculated denslty %

994b73

Part weight
~

2435

1040

99.91% 98.80%

I I I

484.0 1'875.5

Infiltrated
weight
part specificm
:3
1
l
I

612.0

7.91
1

4857

7.82

7.86

Table 4: Weight values of the green parts and of the

Bronze infiltrated thermally sintered ones
In the next Figure 6 an example of the obtained surface
definition is reported through an eledronic m m s m p e
image. while the final die set ready for use is shown in

It is worth pointing out that the experiments were

developed both utilizing the SLS dies and D2 steel dies
in order to mrrpare the wear trends on the dies and the
deriving effeds on the starrped parts.
A produdion batch of 200 parts was taken into acmunt;
such number can in f a d be m s i d e r e d as appropiate
for a niche produdion. All along the produdion several
checks were W e d out in order to m i t o r the wear
evolution on the punch surface. The punch surface
scans were developed utilizing a 3 D scanner (Roland
Pk-30). dth a 0 . 0 8 m spherical piezoelectric
transducer. An approximation of 5 0 was~ guaranteed.
The data aoquired at each check, properly processed.
allowed to rebuild the punch external surface as a set of
single points in the 3 D space.
In order to m i t o r the prqressive wear of the punch
radius a critical sedion was chosen mrresponding to the
maximum value of the loml pressure (Figure 8a). as
indicated in the next Figure 8b. Therefore the punch

profile in the A4 sedion was extraded from the punch

surface data and a muple of proper parameters was
seleded to quantny the wear phenomenon in the above
sedion. In particular a global parameter. namely the
area mrrprised between the punch profile and a
reference segment. and a local one, i.e. the punch
radius in the investgated profile. were chosen.

SLS may represent an effedive rapd tooling

technique also in the field of tool manufaduring for
sheet metal stamping;
after a produdion of 200 parts. in fad. SLS tools still
permit to starrp quite satisfadory parts;
the tests were carried out taking into a m n t
m t a d pressure and sliding veloaty m d i t i o n s
quite simlar to the ones occurring in real stamping
operations; such arcurmtance gives evidence as far
as the transferabillty of the obtained results is
mcerned;
finally. once the suitability of SLS t d s in sheet
metal stamping has been d e m s t r a t e d from the
point of view of technological effediveness. a
definitive assessment has to be carried out. taking
into account emmmical mnsiderations as well.

Figure 8: a - Wear of the punch; b - Critical sedion of

the punch
The expaded trends at the inaeasing of the number of
the produced parts were a redudion of the area (i.e. the
integral parameter) and an increase of the punch radius.
In particular in the next Figure 9 the area value vs. the
No. of produced parts is reported: a larger gradient
occurs after the former produced parts, denoting a r a w
material abrasion, while at the inaeasing of the number
of produced parts the curve gradient decreases.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This w r k has been performed with funding from MlUR

(Italian Ministry for Instrudion. Universlty and Research).

Figure 10: Punch radius at the aitiml sedion vs. the No.
of produced parts

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Another produdion batch of 200 parts was developed

utilizing 0 2 steel dies; in this case rm significant wear
effeds were observed even at the end of the batch.

[ I l l Lee. J.K.. Kinzel. G.L.. Wagoneer. R.H.. editors.

1996. Proceedings of Numsheet '96. The Ohio
State Universlty.

4415 1

50

1W

150

2W

No. of produced parts

Figure 9: Punch area at the critical secthn vs. the No.of
produced parts
As far as the punch radius is regarded. it was measured
interpolating the points of the worn profile with a
arcurrference. The arcurrference radius was assumed
as the current punch radius. Figure 10 reports the punch
radius vs. No. of starrped parts highlighting. again. a
lower inaease of wear after the produdion of the former
100 parts.

2.3

:2.28
c

2.26
2.24

!
fj 2.22
2.2
2.18

E
0

5a

100

150

200

No. ot stamped p a r h

5 CONCLUSIONS
The obtained results permit to assess some relevant
mdusions:

[I21 Alberti. N.. Fratini. L.. Micari. F.. 1995. An explidt

model for the thermaCmechanical analysis of hot
forming processes. Annals of the CIRP. W 1 : 1 9 9
196.