Stresses between die and slug in blanking and their significance for slug pulling

The primary goal when manufacturing components in a blanking process is a high output to achieve good cost efficiency. Therefore, availability needs to be as high as possible. However, several process disturbances like slug pulling increase downtime and thus counteract this aim. Slug pulling is influenced by different forces that trigger the slug being pulled and those that hamper this effect. The predominating hampering force is friction between the slug and the die. Consequently, the influencing factors for this force have to be understood to reliably prevent slug pulling. In this publication, the influence of the die channel geometry on the occurring frictional forces and the part quality when blanking the non-alloy quality steel 1.0338 are investigated. Therefore, experiments with a variation of die channel geometry and punch diameter combined with force measurement are performed. Furthermore, a numeric simulation model based on the experimental results is used to investigate various die channels. The results enhance the knowledge about correlations between process parameters, slug properties, like slug deflection, and frictional forces and help to reliably prevent slug pulling.