Influence of the punch with concave cutting-edge on the blanking force in micro punching process

Abstract

Micro blanking machining is a promising manufacture technology to realize mass production of micro parts efficiently. In the process of blanking, the blanking force is significant to the punch, die, and sheet workpiece. In order to investigate the influence of cutting-edge shape of the punch on the micro blanking process, a self-developed micro combined EDM and blanking machine tool is applied in this paper. A punch with concave cutting-edge is capable to be fabricated online through a series of processing based on micro EDM: 3D milling, wire electrical discharge grinding and reverse EDM copy machining techniques. Then the punch and die are accurately matched online due to the preparation of them in the same coordinate system. Micro blanking parts and punching parts with the complex cross-sectional shape is obtained by using the online fabricated punch with flat cutting-edge and concave cutting-edge respectively in the workpiece of stainless steel SUS304 foil. The characteristic of blanking force varying with time indicates that the blanking force is significantly reduced in the case of concave cutting-edge, meanwhile, both blanking parts and punching parts have the high quality.