Wear at the die radius in sheet metal stamping

In sheet metal stamping, it is known that wear is unevenly distributed over the die radius and that multiple wear mechanisms may occur simultaneously. However, there has been little or no work that details the types of wear mechanisms, and quantifies the locations at which they occur. Furthermore, the link between recently identified time-dependent contact conditions and the wear response is currently unknown. An experimental study is presented in this paper to examine the location, type and severity of wear that occurs over the die radius during a typical sheet metal stamping process. It is found that the wear over the die radius consists of a combination of ploughing and galling mechanisms. The relative severity of the ploughing mechanism is divided into two distinct zones on the die radius, which correlate well with the contact pressure and sliding distance behavior predicted in our recently published numerical study. The galling mechanism results in failure of the stamping process and is, therefore, critical to the overall tool wear response. Our analysis indicates that the severe contact pressure/small sliding distance conditions, which occur during the initial stage of the process, cause the galling behavior observed over the radius. Therefore, it is concluded that the overall tool wear response and tool life is primarily dependent on the initial transient stage of the stamping process.