AutoForm-ToolDeflect – Efficient Analysis and Compensation of Elastic Tool Deflection

Tool deflection is an important issue in the manufacturing of dies and stampings, as it leads to an increased number of tryout loops, rejects and press downtime in production. In order to ensure efficient production, deflection has to be compensated. AutoForm-ToolDeflect enables users to compensate for elastic tool deflection by automatically over-crowning tool surfaces.

AutoForm-ToolDeflect can be applied in the early process design phase when the final tool geometry is not yet available in CAD. The newly developed “substructure generator” enables users to create a draft tool substructure, so that initial tool design concepts can be quickly created based on part geometry only. By analyzing various alternative concept designs, users can select the most effective design with minimal elastic tool deflection.

The software can also be applied in the final validation phase by using already existing final tool geometry data in CAD. When the tool deflection has been calculated, users can carry out an over-crowning. The over-crowning results can then be used for the milling preparation. In this way, AutoForm-ToolDeflect enables users to avoid unnecessary tryout loops and thus improve production efficiency.

Dr. Markus Thomma, CMO of the AutoForm Group, stated: “Reducing tryout loops has always been an important topic in tool shop departments, since each correction loop that can be avoided provides an immediate advantage in terms of time and costs savings. Our newly developed software AutoForm-ToolDeflect greatly supports customers facing such issues.”