Three-dimensional description of sheet-metal surfaces

During sheet-metal forming processes, the friction conditions have a decisive influence on forming limits, the robustness of the production process, and the quality of the parts produced, with significant forces required to overcome friction between the sheet and the tools. If batch-to-batch reproducibility is to be guaranteed, an appropriate method of characterizing the sheet surface topography is needed to monitor the sheet-metal fabrication process. Newly developed optical measurement techniques and computer workstation technology are presented, which enable the topography of sheet surfaces to be described in three dimensions. New parameters for describing sheet surface topography are developed. This may correlate more closely with frictional behaviour in sheet stamping than the previously used two-dimensional parameters, with the size, shape, and distribution of the peaks and valleys of the topography defined. Results generated on a special drawing friction test machine indicate that numerous narrow peaks and large, separate, uniformly distributed valleys yield a desirable resistance to adhesion.