An experimental study on the deep-drawing of metal-wire cloth

Metal-wire cloth which shows a strong planar anisotropy and heterogeneity is deep-drawn into a circular or square cup. The effect of various forming conditions on the formability and the shape quality of the product is systematically investigated. The materials of the wire are a copper, brass and stainless steel. The mesh size ranges from #20 (mesh pitch: 1/20 in.) to #60. The process in which a rubber sheet-pad is inserted between the die and the wire cloth is also performed. In the square cup drawing, the wire cloth is set in the two manners that a wire direction is parallel to the straight edge (named the parallel setting) or coincident with the die hole diagonal (the diagonal setting). As for the circular cup drawing, the limiting drawing ratio (LDR) is beyond 3 in most cases of brass and stainless steel. In the square cup drawing, the LDR is larger for the diagonal setting than for the parallel setting, giving its maximum value beyond 4. The shape quality of a circular cup is mainly affected by the clearance between the punch and die. The rubber sheet-pad is found effective by reducing the clearance substantially. On the other hand, in the square cup drawing, the shape quality for the parallel setting depends mainly on the mesh size: better quality is obtained for coarser mesh. For the diagonal setting, smaller clearance gives better shape quality. A trial numerical simulation of the circular deep-drawing of wire cloth is also carried out by using a rather coarser numerical meshing for the wire cloth. The typical feature of deformation pattern is well simulated as a whole.