Influence of Materials and Its Conditions on Pin-Extrusion from Sheet Metal

Pin structures extruded from the sheet metal plane have numerous industrial applications. For instance, they can be used in bulk microforming to solve handling difficulties or in joining technology to connect dissimilar materials. Due to the absence of material flow restrictions in the direction of the sheet metal plane, pin extrusion is affected by numerous process-, workpiece- and tool-related parameters, which have a huge impact on the material utilization and the obtainable pin geometry. Within the scope of this study, a combined numerical-experimental research approach is used to analyze the influence of the material and its condition on the achievable pin height and the occurrence of the mostly undesired funnel formation at high punch penetration depths. For this purpose, elastic-ideal plastic and elastic-real hardening model materials are first investigated numerically, which are subsequently validated and verified in experiments by using the materials Cu-OFE, AA6016, DC04 on a laboratory scale. Based on the results, recommendations for the material selection and its properties are derived in order to maximize the material utilization.