Design and Manufacturing of a Lightweight Press-Hardening Forming Tool by Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Press-hardening is an important metal sheet manufacturing process to improve the metal sheet properties during forming with an inline quenching process. This requires higher cooling rates often obtained by cooling channels within the tools, that enable the formation of martensite for a high strength. The manufacturing of those forming tools with internal cooling channels is quite complex, time and material consuming and therefore expensive. Optimal cooling channel geometry cannot be realized by conventional machining operations, that limits cooling efficiency too.

Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) is a layer-wise welding process, that allows the manufacturing of near net shapes and internal cooling channels. In contrast to conventional machining, manufacturing of a complex lightweight design forming tool can be realized by WAAM. This will further reduce the WAAM process time and material consumption. However, the lightweight design reduces on one hand the thermal mass and thus the capability of heat transfer, making cooling via the cooling channels more crucial. On the other hand, elastic tool deformation has to be as low as possible.

In this study, a press-hardening forming tool made of S235JR is designed and manufactured by means of WAAM. FEM analysis are performed to optimize the design of the forming tool regarding lightweight aspects. Simple near net shapes of cooling channels are considered for a simplification of the WAAM process. The forming tool is mechanically tested to compare and evaluate the stiffness with the FEM analysis.