Sheet metal stamping parts are widely used in various industries, suitable for a variety of metal sheet materials, mainly including: carbon steel, stainless steel, cold rolled steel, aluminum alloy, copper alloy, galvanized steel, titanium alloy and so on. Sheet metal stamping does not change the properties of the material during processing. The material is changed into products of various shapes, sizes and properties through pressure, which is very suitable for the manufacture of large-scale sheet metal parts, with low cost, high efficiency and uniformity. gender and other characteristics.
WHAT IS PROGRESSIVE STAMPING?
Progressive stamping is an advanced metalworking process where a progressive die and stamping press is used in combination with an automated material feeding system to form sheet metal.
It is widely used where complex parts with tight tolerances are required in large quantities. Progressive stamping allows for the production of these parts at typically very low cost per part and is favoured where possible in the production of high volume parts.
The progressive die set is designed with multiple stations along the direction of the material feed. Each station is designed to perform one or more operations on the sheet metal strip. This allows a single die set to perform multiple operations without any change in setup.
The stations are equally spaced between each other by a pre-determined pitch. This pitching is input into the feeding system and material is fed the same distance each stroke of the metal stamping presses to move them through the different stations in the die. This movement requires high levels of precision as the semi-finished parts in the material strip needs to be well aligned with each subsequent station in order for the operation to be carried out. This is usually achieved by using pilot pins to guide the material strip along the direction of travel.
Some examples of operations which are commonly carried out in a progressive stamping operation are:
BENEFITS OF PROGRESSIVE STAMPING
Progressive stamping dies can be tailored to handle production rates ranging from 30 strokes per minute to over 1,000 strokes per minute depending on the design of the die and the stamping press in use.
These dies can also be customized to include multiple cavities within the same die. Every additional cavity means an additional part produced per stroke. This means that the dies can be further customized to suit your production volume needs from medium to very high volumes. NVT has experience in designing and fabrication progressive metal stamping dies with up to 9 cavities in a single die.
To illustrate what this means in terms of productivity, a 9-cavity progressive stamping die manufacturing products at 100 strokes per minute can produce over 8.5 million parts per month on a 5-day work week with one 8-hour shift a day. A significant production volume on one press machine alone!
A progressive metal stamping method of production will greatly reduce cost per part produced.
Reduced labour costs – due to the highly automatic nature of the process (presses run themselves after initial setup and only periodic monitoring and sampling is required) progressive stamping will significantly improve the labour cost per part as each operator can now potentially serve multiple machines.
Reduced capital investment costs – The impressive production rates achievable by progressive stamping means you can achieve the same volume of parts using fewer machines and tools. This reduces the amount of capital investment required to either start a new production line or redesign your current products.
Quick setup times – Setup is simple and fast with a progressive die as all the operations to produce a part is contained within a single die. This eliminates or reduces the time taken to have multiple tool setups or secondary operations and translates into a direct cost saving.
Reduced material wastage – Progressive stamping allows you to work with extremely thin materials. NVT is accustomed to working with materials of up to 0.13mm thickness. The die can also be designed to reduce the amount of scrap material produced with each part which will further improve your cost of production per part.
Progressive stamping can be used to produce very complex geometries including very fine and detailed features in your parts. This enables product designers and planners to be creative with the way they work.
Some major advantages of producing a part by progressive stamping are:
Repeatability – Parts can be produced up to a tolerance of +/- 0.05mm even at the high rates of production. This consistency allows for confidence to design parts to close tolerances without exceeding the allowable costs on a product.
Seamless construction – as parts can be formed and drawn from a single sheet of metal, within the same environment, parts can be designed to be seamle.