Effect of Grain Size on Micro Deep Drawing of SUS304 Stainless Steel Square Cup
The study investigated the effect of grain size on the micro deep drawing of SUS304 stainless steel squares. Three stainless steel sheets with different thicknesses of 0.05 mm, 0.1 mm and 0.2 mm were treated by annealing processes at 1100 °C in which the holding times were varied in order to adjust the grain size. The sheets were used in the micro deep drawing processes for producing the square cups with 3 mm side length and 1.8 mm height. According to the design rules from references, the dimensions of the blank were determined to reduce the variation on the rim height of the square cup. The results showed that two peak values appeared on the load curves and the as-received sheet with the smallest grain size led to the largest load. Moreover, the cases of the as-received sheet with smaller grains had smoother surface textures than those of the annealed sheets with larger grains.