The formability of the drawn part in the deep drawing process depends not only on the material properties, but also on the equipment used, metal flow control and tool parameters. The most common defects can be the thickening, stretching and splitting. However, the optimization of tools including the die and punch parameters leads to a reduction of the defects and improves the quality of the products. In this paper, the formability of the camera cover by aluminum alloy A1050 in the deep drawing process was examined relating to the tool geometry parameters based on numerical and experimental analyses. The results showed that the thickness was the smallest and the stress was the highest at one of the bottom corners where the biaxial stretching was the predominant mode of deformation. The problems of the thickening at the flange area, the stretching at the side wall and the splitting at the bottom corners could be prevented when the tool parameters were optimized that related to the thickness and stress. It was clear that the optimal thickness distribution of the camera cover was obtained by the design of tools with the best values—with the die edge radius 10 times, the pocket radius on the bottom of the die 5 times, and the punch nose radius 2.5 times the sheet thickness. Additionally, the quality of the camera cover was improved with a maximum thinning of 25% experimentally, and it was within the suggested maximum allowable thickness reduction of 45% for various industrial applications after optimizing the tool geometry parameters in the deep drawing process.
Investigation on sheet flexible-die drawing process
