Pressing requirements: General Industry Coverage

Manufacturing higher-quality and more complex cut, stamped, deep-drawn and formed sheet metal parts while minimizing tool wear is a major challenge. The challenge is magnified when processing high-strength steels, such as 1.4310 spring steel. The modular hy-PRESS laser-assisted machining press upgrade from Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology enables manufacturers to achieve those goals, according to Markus Eckert, group leader of laser system technology and medicine technology at Fraunhofer IPT.

“We can achieve up to a 100 percent clear-cut surface ratio with a conventional shearing process,” he said, noting that such a high-quality cut typically requires a costly fine-blanking process. “And, on the other side, we are able to increase the formability of the material.” For example, Fraunhofer IPT engineers reportedly reduced the bending radius of a 1mm-thick sheet of spring steel from 2mm to 0.25mm in the rolling direction of the sheet.

In another application, the laser- assisted machining press system embossed high-strength materials, raising surface areas about 50 percent without damaging the embossing tools, Eckert noted. “With a conventional tool and a conventional press, you can’t emboss high-strength materials because the hardness of the material is higher than the hardness of the tool, so you emboss the tool and not the material,” he explained. “The [hy-PRESS upgrade] widens the borders of sheet metal working processes.”

Courtesy of Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology

Laser-assisted sheet metal working using the hy-PRESS system (below) from Fraunhofer IPT creates surfaces with continuously smooth cuts.