Tribology of Stamping; The Influence of Designed Steel Sheet Surface Topography on Friction

Doctoral thesis, 2006

Tribology is the science of friction, wear, and lubrication; the interaction of surfaces in relative motion. The tribological conditions in sheet metal forming influences the flow of material in forming operations, the strain distributions of sheet material, extent of wear, and thereby the quality of products. The purpose of the thesis is to increase the knowledge of why and how sheet surface topography influence the frictional response in stamping, to characterise the geometrical properties, and make results applicable for industry. The frictional response of different surface topographies have been measured in a Bending Under Tension test under mixed lubricated conditions. The studied materials have been stainless steel sheets and uncoated and coated carbon steel sheets. The results did show the influence of roughness, skewness, and anisotropy of surface topography. The findings could be explained by the theory of pad bearings. A new functional 3D parameter (Sq>0) was developed for pressing performance that is sensitive to the effects of roughness and skewness. The texture-aspect ratio parameter (Str) was found to be correlated to the anisotropical behaviour of the frictional response. The results are very tangible and mean increased control of stamping operations. An initial step was taken to introduce more advanced tribological models in FE simulation of sheet metal forming operations. The aim is to decrease the trial-and-error time in the design process of dies and tools. A friction model considering surface topography (Sq>0), sliding velocity, lubricant viscosity, and apparent pressure, was successfully implemented. Simulations of a part were evaluated with real stamping try-outs. The results did show the potential of improving the precision in forming simulations with more advanced tribological models. Finally, theory and characterisation methods of active micro-oil pockets in the contact zone of tool and sheet were investigated. The real contact area was shown to be the critical feature to determine. Therefore, two topographical methods and one microscope-imaging processing technique were studied, but no method was found to be viable. However, the experimental results did not confirm the importance of micro-oil pockets in mixed lubricated regime.