Experimental Investigation of the Cutting Edge Microshape to Improve the Wear Resistance of Punch and Die Tools for Sheet Metal Punching

The wear behaviour of functional surfaces, in particular cutting edges, on punching and die tools represents a limiting factor for tool life. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of air pressurized wet abrasive jet machining for the defined preparation of cutting edges with the aim of eliminating production related microdefects like burrs and chippings. For this purpose, a suitable progressive tool was manufactured and variants of active elements made of cemented carbide with different cutting edge microshapes were compared with a sharp-edged variant. The state of wear was investigated after three iteration stages of 50,000 punch strokes each. Furthermore, the influence of the cutting edge microshape on the resulting process forces and parameters of the shear-cut surfaces of the punching slugs was investigated.