Application of Design of Experiments and Simulation to Improve the Deep Drawing Process of Sheet Metal Forming

The objective of this work was the planning, simulation and evaluation of the behavior and interactions of diverse factors in the deep drawing process, in order to prevent defects on formed metal sheet parts. The material used is austenitic stainless steel of 0.4 mm of thickness. Due to the potential high number of experiments, a preliminary selection of cylindrical and hemispherical cup drawing geometries was carried out, as well as a parametric analysis of parts and tools. The influence of the punch and die transition radii, as well as the force of the binder, on the maximum thinning suffered by the material,was studied. The tests were planned by means of CAD/CAE and the design of experiments method. After running the simulation with AutoForm, they were evaluated with FLD, Regression, ANOVA, Six Sigma and Pareto analysis. This sequence allowed us to analyze the influence and sensitivity of several tool and process design parameters and to optimize the process. The results of this investigation have also proven to be useful to simplify and accelerate the design of deep drawing tools.