• 2023-10-16
• 688
• 5 Comments

How to effectively shorten the mold manufacturing cycle

With the increasingly fierce competition in the automobile industry, model renewal is getting faster and faster, and the cycle is getting shorter and shorter. The mold development department needs to summarize and analyze all aspects of mold development, shorten the development cycle, and achieve the purpose of improving the efficiency of mold development.

The development of automobile covering die is divided into two stages: design and manufacture. Design includes stamping SE, stamping process DL diagram design, CAE analysis and die surface compensation design, CAM die surface design, die structure design, FMC, structure and die surface programming, manufacturing including FMC production, casting and forging blank preparation, primary processing, initial assembly, secondary processing, assembly, research, debugging and quality improvement and delivery process. In the mold development cycle, the mold design cycle of the vehicle is usually about 4 to 5 months, and the mold manufacturing cycle is up to 12 months, debugging and quality improvement account for 5 to 6.5 months, therefore, improving the manufacturing efficiency of the mold is of great significance for shortening the development cycle.

Cover die design and manufacturing status

In recent years, the development of the die has made great progress in technology, most of them have realized the 3D DL diagram design, the process of the whole process CAE analysis, has begun the die surface compensation design, the die surface for unequal gap design. Three-dimensional solid design of die structure, dynamic interference simulation, waste sliding out simulation and stamping automatic line simulation.

In the mold manufacturing, FMC three-dimensional processing has been implemented, the first processing is fully programmable, the second processing is automatic, the mold quenching (the implementation of intermediate frequency quenching and flame quenching), some enterprises have carried out laser quenching, the implementation of the fire after finishing. Mold manufacturing has been carried out "one flow" manufacturing mode.

The main reasons for the long mold manufacturing cycle include: some parts are difficult to clamp, the mold gap is not suitable, the research and matching workload is large, some parts cracking, wrinkling and rebound defects need to be repeatedly adjusted and rectified, improper planning management and design errors.

Process and die design problems

1. The product process is unreasonable, it is difficult to completely solve from the stamping process, the parts do not meet the quality requirements, and the debugging is difficult, resulting in mold changes or repeated debugging.

2. The CAE analysis parameter setting is unreasonable or the performance of the selected materials is better than that of the actual production, and the analysis does not consider the safety margin or the special requirements of the product, resulting in a large deviation between the process design data and the manufacturing debugging results, resulting in repeated debugging.

3. There are defects in process data or parts product data, which should be solved in the debugging later.

4. The die surface clearance design is unreasonable, resulting in a larger workload in the later stage, and the design does not consider the thickness change of the material during the forming process of the part, the concave compensation of the machine tool and the expansion treatment of the part. The uncolored part of the drawing die of the top cover is designed according to the material thickness gap, resulting in the mold margin of the colored part needs to be fully researched and matched, wasting more than 30 hours.

5. The cutting edge Angle is unreasonable, or the side repair is easy to produce burrs, often resulting in repeated debugging. The precision of cutting edge expansion is not enough or the test material verification is not accurate, resulting in cutting edge adjustment and repair welding processing, especially sometimes the rectified cutting edge is not vertical, not sharp and uneven gap, resulting in burrs, which need to be adjusted several times.

6. The die surface design does not take into account the large root cleaning or pressure area, which requires the fitter to clean the root or the workload of grinding.

7. Process information transmission is not in place, such as: fitters do not understand the mating requirements of various parts of the mold, surface treatment personnel do not understand the quenching area, resulting in rework or information confirmation time is long.