AutoForm News

 
August 16, 2006:
AutoForm 'Emergency Rescue' at Gütersloher Werkzeugbau GmbH

AutoForm Engineering’s software recently solved a key issue during the tooling development phase at German toolmaker Gütersloher Werkzeugbau GmbH. The tool being developed was for a difficult to produce hinge reinforcement for the new Mercedes-Benz Sprinter.

Mr. Eberhard Budde, Plant Manager at Gütersloher Werkzeugbau GmbH (GWB) explains: “We were asked to supply a tool to Kurt Erxleben GmbH (sheet metal stampers), to produce the challenging hinge reinforcement in a maximum of three drawing stages. The main problem we had to solve was that the material at the hinge corners had a maximum allowable thinning tolerance of 20%. This thinning tolerance was a specific restriction of DaimlerChrysler, as the hinges support the heavy tailgate of the new Sprinter van – and therefore tears or other sheet metal failures must not occur.”

Strip layout of hinge reinforcement and color plot of simulation results (thinning)

The 20% maximum thinning tolerance was a major constraint for GWB. At the hinge edges and corners, the formed metal would typically become too thin. Even by changing the tool radius and using lubricants, the resulting thinning exceeded the allowable tolerance. The ’Emergency Rescue‘ was finally performed by optimizing the drawing stages with technology from AutoForm Engineering GmbH. It took only three days using AutoForm simulation software to find a solution for the tool, and to obtain a fully formed part in only two drawing stages.

Today, the hinge is produced within an acceptable range of 6-16% thinning. GWB has also been highly impressed by the fact that AutoForm’s simulation results showed the same thinning values as they saw in their experimental trials. This was further confirmation of the highly reliable results that AutoForm has been delivering already for several years.

Two modules from the AutoForm suite of solutions were used in this project. First, with AutoForm-Incremental, the tools, blank and all related process parameters were defined. AutoForm-Incremental was also used to simulate the forming process and evaluate the results. Then, using the AutoForm-DieDesigner geometry generator, the first drawing step was redesigned and the tooling geometry was created. “Our collaboration with AutoForm was excellent and we will make use of their services again. If we receive more customer orders like this in the future, I could very well imagine purchasing AutoForm software”, summarized Mr. Eberhard Budde.

Press Release [pdf - 74 KB], Image

Contact:
Dr. Markus Thomma
Director of Marketing
AutoForm Engineering GmbH
Technoparkstrasse 1
CH-8005 Zurich
Switzerland