Ford Global Technolgoies, LLC

Ford Motor Company Limited

Feng Ren

Zhiyong Cedric Xia

S George Luckey, Jr

Andrey M Ilinich

Vijitha Senaka Kiridena

Michael William Danyo

Evangelos Liasi

Yinong Shen

Ryan Hoffman

Yuan Gan

Raj Sohmshetty

Carl Frederick Johnson

Daniel Quinn Houston

Constantin Chiriac

Stephen Kernosky

Liang Huang

Ilya Popov

Dan Zeng

A stamped part includes a first blank, a second blank, and a weld joining the first blank to the second blank. The weld includes opposing ends. At least one of the opposing ends of the weld is recessed from adjacent edges of the first and second blanks.

Methods of forming and stamping tailor friction stir welded blanks with enhanced edge stretch

A forming die includes a first die component with a male bead and a second die component with a female bead. The male bead and the female bead form a bead with a reverse bead geometry with the male bead having a groove and the female bead having a protrusion complimentary with the groove such that the protrusion is aligned with the groove when the male bead extends into the female bead. The male bead includes a push surface, a pair of sidewalls extending from the push surface to a main surface of the first die component, and the groove extends inwardly into the rib. And the female bead includes a stop surface and a pair of sidewalls extending from the stop surface to a main surface of the second die component, and the protrusion extends outwardly from the stop surface into the female bead.

Forming die with reverse bead geometry

A method of forming a stamped part includes forming a tailor welded blank by friction stir welding (FSW) a first blank to a second blank, removing a FSW start spot and a FSW stop spot from the tailor welded blank using a machining process such that a finished tailor welded blank is formed and stamping the finished tailor welded blank into the stamped part such that a weld formed by FSW the first blank to the second blank is plastically deformed. The first blank and the second blank can be aluminum alloy blanks and a predetermined amount of material is machined from the FSW start spot and the FSW stop spot, the predetermined amount of material being equal to or greater than a thickness of the first blank and the second blank.

A method of quenching a press hardenable steel (PHS) is provided. The method includes preparing a die having a material with a thermal conductivity of at least 40W/(m&#xb7;K) and placing a blank within the die and simultaneously hot stamping and quenching the blank at a heat transfer coefficient of at least 2,950W/(m&#xb7;K). In one form, the step of hot stamping the blank is carried out with greater than 20 MPa of contact pressure between the die and the blank. In another form, the step of hot stamping the blank is carried out with 31 MPa of contact pressure between the die and the blank.

Die construction methodology for reducing quench time for press hardenable steels

A method of evaluating a sheet metal stamping simulation is provided. The method may include defining elements of a finite-element mesh representing a stamped panel, operating on the elements to simulate deformation of the panel during stamping to generate, for each of the elements, incremental differential major and minor plastic strain values, applying a weighting factor to temporally adjacent pairs of the values to generate smoothed values, deriving, from the smoothed values and for each of the elements, a plurality of plastic strain incremental ratios representing plastic flow direction of the elements during the deformation, and altering colors of a map based on the ratios to represent changes in severity of plastic deformation of the stamped panel.

Method for predicting plastic strain ratio from stamping simulation

Dies for forming components, such as sheet components, and methods of producing the dies are disclosed. The die may include a bulk material and a forming surface. A solid conductor may be formed in the bulk material. The solid conductor may be spaced from and extend adjacent to the forming surface and have a melting point that is greater than a melting point of the bulk material. The solid conductor may be configured to absorb heat from the forming surface. There may multiple solid conductors within the bulk material, for example spaced apart and extending along an axis. The solid conductor may be a bundle of carbon fibers, which may be pitch-based. The solid conductor may be conformal to the forming surface, for example, having a constant spacing therefrom. The solid conductor may be cast-in to the die during its production.

Cooling of dies using solid conductors

An tool for the incremental forming of material sheeting is disclosed. The tool comprises a forming tip, a shank, and an interface adapter positioned between the forming tip and the shank. The forming tip has a diameter and the shank has a diameter. The diameter of the forming tip is greater than the diameter of the shank. The forming tip may be of a variety of configurations. The forming tip may be donut-shaped. The donut-shaped tip may have a recessed area formed therein. The recessed area may be frustoconically shaped. As an alternative to the forming tip being donut-shaped, the forming tip may be made up of at least two forming spheres. An adapter is provided to which the spheres may be attached either directly or by arms. The diameters of the spheres may be the same or may be different diameters.

High stiffness and high access forming tool for incremental sheet forming

A method of incrementally forming a workpiece. The method may include incrementally forming a stiffening feature on the workpiece and incrementally forming a part on the workpiece. A gap between forming tools may be decreased to reform the part.

Method to improve geometrical accuracy of an incrementally formed workpiece

A galling-resistive insert is positioned on an outer surface of a mandrel assembly. The insert is secured at the outer surface of the mandrel assembly and functions to reduce galling of an inner surface of a tubular blank during a rotary-draw bending operation.

Rotary-draw bending mandrel with galling-resistive inserts

The stamping of a metal sheet within a stamping die is simulated. The die includes a drawbead running perpendicular to a draw direction. A plurality of successive states are generated for iteratively representing the metal sheet from a blank shape to a final stamped shape. The drawbead is represented as a two-dimensional flat band within a model of the stamping die. Forces acting on the metal sheet are calculated at each successive state to define a next successive state. The calculating step includes a restraining force of the drawbead acting on the metal sheet calculated in response to a predetermined function of a length of the metal sheet engaged in the flat band in respective states. The particular width and location of the flat band achieve improved accuracy of estimating the restraining force.

Pseudo-physical modeling of drawbead in stamping simulations

A method of incrementally forming a workpiece. The method includes incrementally forming a first monotonic wrap surface in a first direction and incrementally forming a second wrap surface in a second direction disposed opposite the first direction.

Method of incremental forming with successive wrap surfaces

A system and method for incrementally forming a workpiece. A first manipulator is configured to move a first tool in multiple directions along a first surface of a workpiece. A second manipulator is configured to move a second tool in multiple directions along a second surface of the workpiece. The first and second tools move along first and second predetermined paths of motion and exert force to form the workpiece.

System and method for incrementally forming a workpiece

A method for simulating a hydroforming process includes modeling a virtual hydroforming die and a virtual tubular workpiece. The virtual workpiece is placed within the die after the die has been expanded. The die is then contracted to a finished size while the workpiece is deformed into a non-circular cross section in contact with the virtual die. The workpiece is subsequently pressurized to simulate production of a finished part.

Method for simulating a hydroforming process

A method for determining compensated addendum and binder surfaces as part of a springback compensated stamping die for producing a stamped part includes modeling of the existing addendum surface and binder surface of the stamping die. The addendum and binder surfaces are modified according to a number of compensatory surface displacements and in-plane rotations required for springback compensation of the finished stamped part. Following this modification, the stamped part may be separated from the addendum and binder without a loss of dimensional accuracy.

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Feng Ren