Advances in Stamping

Stamping is a sheet metal forming process that includes shearing, punching, blanking, piercing, coining, bending, drawing, stretching, embossing, flanging, and trimming. Improvements in sheet metal stamping quality, flexibility, and efficiency require new technological advances in both tooling technology and process control techniques to keep the stampings away from defects such as wrinkling and cracks. Nowadays, tendency is on applications of various methods based on the control of material flow during the forming process. Blankholders are aimed to produce additional constrains to control material flow. Drawbeads are also important elements that help blankholders to control of the material flow locally and provide strain regulation totally. In this chapter, innovations on the tooling in the sheet metal stamping are covered in the aspect of controllability and flexibility. The effects of drawbeads restraining force, active drawbeads, variable blankholder force, and segmented dies are discussed. Finally, future challenges on tooling in stamping are explained briefly.