Page 32 - 3D Metal Printing Summer 2019

3D Hot Stamping Success
higher and higher strength steel materials, so, too, as Bell offers, must tool steel materials evolve to form such parts.
In his presentation at the Hot Stamping Experience and Tech Tour, Formetrix’s Lemke details the R&D and application devel- opment work involved, and his stated payoff: Easy-to-print pow- dered tool steels formulated specifically for the laser powder bed fusion process. The result: Conformally cooled tool designs offering benefits such as shorter tool lead times, lower hot stamp- ing cycle times and hot stamping of more complex parts.
Recounting his lengthy forming-material experience, Lemke cites the ever-present efforts to drive 3D printing down the cost curve.
“Back in 2007,” he recalls, “I realized that except for maraging steel, which isn’t very common in the tool steel industry, no tool steels could be printed easily via laser based powder bed fusion, the most common metal AM process.”
Those tool steels that were printed, he notes, required pre- heating of the material to 750 F or higher, further increasing the 3D printing cost. Though no commercial metal printers existed at the time, Lemke was cognizant of what would be coming. As he explains, higher volumes of metal-powder production would drive down costs, and with AM reaching into higher-part-volume arenas such as automotive and industrial, an affordable AM steel powder with the needed hardness and toughness would be a boon to the industry, as was the case decades ago with sin- tered powdered metal.
Combining such material with the AM process delivers an alternative to long tooling lead times while enabling design free- dom. This is especially important in hot stamping, Lemke says, which often requires intricate cooling channels. Efficiently designed tooling also offers the opportunity to reduce cycle times—another hot stamping challenge.
In his presentation, Lemke discusses the properties, appli- cations and benefits of a crack-free AM powder, printable at room temperature and exhibiting high hardness and high duc- tility. He also discusses the postprocessing options such as heat treatments, carburizing, nitriding and PVD coating under tight dimensional control and given surface-roughness requirements.
In researching and testing formulations in the quest for such AM powder, “I don't know how many hundreds of pieces I have seen cracking,” Lemke says. “The insidious thing is, sometimes we would print it, go home and celebrate success. Then after a day or two we would see the cracks. These developments took years of work and came to a successful conclusion.”
Further, the presentation will include parameters and printing speeds on different machines as well as heat treatment results from commercial heat treaters in the United States and Germany, as well as an economic outlook. One end-use success to be detailed by Lemke at the event relates to a hot stamped produc- tion part for a 2019 North American truck.
Attend for More, Including a Tour
The Hot Stamping Experience and Tech Tour, a one-of-a-kind
event, is designed to dive deeply into the ever expanding world of hot stamping. It features presentations from industry experts as well as a tour of host company Urgent Design & Manufacturing, Lapeer, MI, part of the 3-Dimensional Services Group. A Tier- One automotive supplier, 3-Dimensional Services Group provides vertical integrated rapid manufacturing services, including design, engineering and manufacturing of precision prototype parts and assemblies. In addition, it has invested significantly to modernize equipment to better support low-to-medium-vol- ume production applications.
In Lapeer, 3-Dimensional Services houses its prototype and low-volume hot stamping capabilities, courtesy of Urgent Design & Manufacturing. This includes an automated hot stamping cell for prototyping. Trumpf three- and five-axis laser cutters trim blank material, and within the cell, two AP&T 500-ton, NC-con- trolled presses perform the forming, with a Kuka KR210 robot responsible for material transfer between the presses and furnace. The cell also provides automated material clamping. Hot Stamp- ing Experience and Tour attendees will see how Urgent meets the needs of its OEM and Tier-One customer base via this cell and other capabilities.
Hot Stamping Experience and Tech Tour presentations include the following:
Novel, Cost-Efficient 3D Printed Hot and Cold Forming Tools for High Volume Part Production, by Harald Lemke, chief com- mercial officer, Formetrix. Learn about the benefits of 3D printing for the manufacture of tooling and dies, and for hot and cold forming, with novel designs and conformal cooling that extend tooling and die lifetime, and accelerate production.
Fundamentals and Applications of Hot Stamping Technology for Producing Automotive Parts, by Eren Billur, technical man- ager, Billur Metal Form Ltd. An introduction to hot stamping of UHSS technique and its evolution will be provided.
Welding Fasteners to Hot Stamped Coated Steels, by Bob Kollins, senior application engineer, Technical Sales & Solutions, and Allen M. Agin, Midwest regional sales manager, Weld Systems Integrators, Inc. Kollins and Agin will review the manufacturing issues encountered when projection welding fasteners onto hot stamped/press hardened, AlSi-coated components.
Laser Cutting Press Hardened Steel: Software and Hardware Advancements Combine to Reduce Cycle Time and Consumable Use, by Nathan Harris, industry management-automotive, Trumpf Inc. Learn how new laser cutting technology is helping shops working with press hardened steels meet the challenges presented by ever-increasing part sizes and pressure to maximize throughput.
Hot Stamping Die Development and Optimization, by Mike Austin, director–manufacturing engineering, Diversified Tooling Group. Learn more on the challenges involved and the options available when creating tooling for hot stamping applications.
For event details and to register, visit www.metalforming- magazine.com/hot-stamping-experience-and-tech-tour.
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