Comparison of Fine and Conventional Blanking Based on Ductile Fracture Criteria

A comparison between fine and conventional blanking is carried out in this paper. In the fine blanking process, V-ring indentation is applied to create hydrostatic pressure and prevent premature fracture in an undesired direction. Furthermore, a small clearance between the punch and die is employed along with a counterforce punch that causes concentrated strain in the sheared band region. A fracture mechanics oriented finite element procedure has been employed in this research work in order to obtain the fracture path. The fracture path is found according to the stress and strain histories which are calculated in each element. The numerical results have shown that the sheared edge quality in the blanking process is strongly influenced by the fracture path. In fine blanking, there are various parameters affecting the sheared edge quality and dimensional accuracy. The finite element calculation is carried out for an axisymmetric model. The commercial finite element code ABAQUS V6.2 is employed along with a controlling program that is written in Visual BASIC.