Y.

Park
1
J. S. Colton
Professor, Fellow ASME
The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical
Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology,
Atlanta, GA 30332-0405
Failure Analysis of Rapid
Prototyped Tooling in Sheet Metal
FormingV-Die Bending
The demand for rapid, low-cost die fabrication and modication technology is greater
than ever in the sheet metal forming industry. One category of rapid tooling technology
involves the use of advanced polymers and composite materials to fabricate metal forming
dies. However, due to their lack of strength as compared to conventional metal dies, the
use of polymer dies is often limited to prototype or short-run production. In addition,
because the mechanisms by which they fail are not fully understood, the dies are designed
on the basis of experience and intuition. This study investigates the failure of V-bending
dies fabricated from an easy-to-machine, polyurethane-based, composite board stock.
Based on the mechanical behavior of the die material, several failure criteria are pro-
posed to predict die failure mode and the corresponding die life. Both computational and
experimental methods are employed to assess the accuracy of the criteria and to identify
the dominant process parameters in V-die bending. DOI: 10.1115/1.1828053
1 Introduction
Sheet metal forming is one of the most commonly practiced
fabrication processes in industry. Throughout the years, the sheet
metal forming industry experienced technological advances that
allowed the production of complex parts. However, the advances
in die design and fabrication progressed at a much slower rate,
and they still depend heavily on trial-and-error and the experi-
ences of skilled workers.
One trend evident in todays manufacturing industry is the
growing demand for faster turn-around times and a more efcient
means of producing prototype and short-run tooling. In most
manufacturing industries, prototype fabrication is a crucial step in
the development or modication of a product before proceeding to
large-scale production. It allows an early assessment of the part
during the design stage, and enables a reduction in the product
development time. Also, the trend of customer needs is heading
towards low-volume production of diverse products. This trend
gave rise to the development of rapid prototyping RP and tool-
ing RT technologies.
Many research efforts have been dedicated to developing RT
techniques for sheet metal forming, pioneered by Nakagawa 2
and Dickens 3. Du et al. 4 and Cheah et al. 5 investigated
various direct and indirect RT techniques, which use advanced
computer-aided techniques and computer-controlled machines to
produce nonferrous tooling. The authors performed and made
comparisons among three approachesselective laser sintering
SLS, stereolithography SLA, and high-speed computer nu-
merical controlled CNC millingin terms of tool life and tool
development cost and time, which can serve as a criteria for the
selection of a RT process. Walczyk and Hardt 6 developed the
proled edge lamination PEL tooling method, in which
contoured-edge lamination members are stacked side-by-side and
reoriented to a vertical plane, solving the stair-stepped surface
problem. Compared to CNC machining, the PEL method elimi-
nates most tooling accessibility problems, reduces limitations on
die geometry, and allows for faster fabrication.
One of the techniques that has been drawing attention from
industry recently is the application of aluminum trihydrateATH-
lled polyurethane as a tooling material. An example is Ren
Shape 5166. The foremost advantage is its good machinability,
which allows a signicant reduction in the die fabrication time.
The ATH-lled polyurethane also exhibits high compressive
strength and impact resistance among its class, which helps the
die resist deformation and retain sharp edges.
Despite their advantages in terms of lead time and cost, poly-
mer composite dies have several shortcomings. Due to their lack
of strength as compared to conventional die materials, the life of
polymer composite dies is an issue. The sectors of industry that
use these dies have been hindered by their premature failurethat
is, the dies fail before the desired number of sheet metal parts are
produced. Moreover, because the mechanisms by which they fail
are not fully understood, in most cases dies still are designed on
the basis of experience and intuition. In practice, the polymer
composite tool manufacturers actually depend on the design stan-
dards and guidelines established for metal dies.
Unlike sheet metal forming, where die failure is not much of an
issue because the stiffness of the formed parts is signicantly
lower than that of the die, a number of studies have been geared
toward the failure analysis of the dies in bulk metal forming. Most
of them involve computer-aided techniques with the common goal
of reducing development time and cost by replacing full-scale
process trials with computational simulations. Numerical simula-
tion and modeling of metal forming processes, based on the
knowledge of underlying process mechanics and validated by ex-
perimental results, are powerful tools for optimizing process pa-
rameters 7. A number of studies estimated the mechanical fa-
tigue life of cold forging or extrusion dies 811. However,
studies on the failure of sheet metal forming dies have been rather
limited as these often are assumed to have innite lives, which is
not necessarily true for polymer composite dies.
This paper proposes a fracture mechanics and fatigue-based
method to determine the failure mode of a 90 deg V-bending die
fabricated from a polymer composite and to determine the fatigue
life of the die if the die is predicted to fail by fatigue. The research
used machinable ATH-lled polyurethane board stock, known as
Ren Shape 5166 by Vantico Inc. In the case of fatigue failure,
four representative fatigue models were investigated to determine
the most accurate life estimation criterion. Subsequently, nite
element analyses FEA were performed to simulate the V-die
bending process and to obtain the stressstrain response. Experi-
ments were performed to verify the proposed die failure mode and
life prediction method as well as the FEA results. Finally, a para-
1
Currently at the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing, FAMU-FSU
College of Engineering, Tallahassee, FL.
Contributed by the Manufacturing Engineering Division for publication in the
JOURNAL OF MANUFACTURING SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. Manuscript received
August 11, 2003; revised February 11, 2004. Associate Editor: J. Cao.
116 Vol. 127, FEBRUARY 2005 Copyright 2005 by ASME Transactions of the ASME
metric study was performed to identify the dominant process pa-
rameters that govern tool life, based on which die design guide-
lines were proposed.
2 Simulation of V-Die Bending
2.1 Mechanics of Sheet Metal Bending. V-die bending is
one of the most fundamental sheet metal forming processes. The
terms used in bending are dened and illustrated in Fig. 1 12.
The basic design and process parameters in V-die bending include
bend radius R
b
, bend angle , die opening distance between die
shoulders W, properties of sheet metal, sheet thickness T, and
punch speed v
p
. During V-die bending, the punch rst contacts
the unsupported sheet metal. By progressing farther down, the
punch forces the material to follow along, until nally bottoming
on the V shape of the die 13.
2.2 Pre-Processing. A commercial FEA package, ABAQUS/
CAE, was used to simulate two-dimensional 90 deg V-die bending.
This section describes the base model shown in Fig. 2, which is
used as a reference model in the parametric study in Sec. 5.2. Due
to symmetry, only half of the model was taken into account. As
shown in the gure, the model consisted of punch, workpiece, and
die. The punch and the die were modeled as isotropic, elastically
deformable bodies with the mechanical properties of Ren Shape
5166 i.e., Youngs modulus of 7.2 GPa and Poissons ratio of
0.34 1. Annealed aluminum 1100 was selected for the sheet
metal and was modeled as elastic and linearly strain-hardening to
realistically account for plastic deformation. The nodes along the
centerline of symmetry and those on the bottom surface of the die
were constrained in the horizontal and vertical directions, respec-
tively. Forming was assumed to take place at room temperature,
and therefore thermal strains were neglected. The process condi-
tions for the base model are summarized in Column A of Table
1. A matched punch-die set was used, and the geometries were
determined based on the design guidelines provided by handbooks
13,14.
2.3 FE Model Validation: Computational. The base
model contained 1078, 2256, and 1114 elements and 1000, 1959,
and 980 nodes in the punch, die, and sheet, respectively. There
were ve elements in the sheet thickness direction. Due to the
nonlinear nature of the sheet metal forming process, instability in
the solution may result. Accordingly, an iterative method was used
to nd the optimal mesh density. The minimum mesh sizes at the
punchblankdie interface were determined by rening the mesh
until solution convergence was reached and localized instability
was eliminated.
The minimum mesh size along the V prole in the die was
varied from 0.1 to 0.6 mm by increments of 0.1 mm. The contact
stresses or traction, total strain energies, and bending force or
punch force curves were compared, and the optimal mesh size
was selected such that further renement no longer resulted in a
signicant improvement in solution accuracy. While the contact
stresses enabled the investigation of local convergence at the con-
tact surfaces, global convergence of the entire model could be
achieved by comparing the total strain energies and the bending
forces with respect to mesh size. The minimum mesh size of 0.3
mm was chosen as the optimal value for the current base
model. The stresses in the punch were not considered because the
preliminary FEA revealed that the die was subjected to a more
severe condition under both tension and compression, thus mak-
ing the die more prone to failure.
3 Die Failure Mode and Life Prediction
3.1 Overview of Failure Modes in Sheet Metal Forming
Dies. Possible failure modes in sheet metal forming were modi-
ed from Csers model 15, which investigated bulk metal form-
ing dies, and are illustrated in Fig. 3. The horizontal axis repre-
sents the tool life, typically dened as the number of parts
produced before the die is assessed to have failed. There are four
major failure modes in sheet metal forming dies: 1 fracture due
to overload, 2 plastic deformation due to cyclic compressive
contact pressure, 3 fatigue due to microcrack nucleation and
growth, and 4 wear due to relative, frictional movement at the
punchworkpiecedie interface.
Fracture and fatigue are particularly detrimental because they
often cause an immediate breakdown of a manufacturing system.
The result is a signicant delay in production because the die
Fig. 1 V-die bending terminology 12
Fig. 2 Finite element model of V-die bending
Table 1 Process conditions for FEA and experiment
Process parameter Symbol A B
Bend radius R
b
5 mm 5 mm
Die shoulder radius R
s
5 mm 5 mm
Die opening W 30 mm 25 mm
Die width W
d
100 mm 100 mm
Die height H 45 mm 45 mm
Length of bend
Die thickness into the paper
L 1 mm 8.5 mm
Sheet material N/A 1100-O Al 3003-H14 Al
Sheet thickness T 1 mm 0.8 mm
Sheet width W
s
50 mm 80 mm
Punch travel distance d
p
12.5 mm 9.5 mm
Punch speed v
p
120 mm/min 120 mm/min
Friction coefcient No friction 0.2
Miscellaneous N/A Plane strain Plane stress
Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering FEBRUARY 2005, Vol. 127 117
requires removal, repair, and re-installation. Plastic deformation
and wear are less critical in terms of their inuence on manufac-
turing ow; however, they also call for an immediate attention in
sheet metal forming because the parts produced are extremely
sensitive to die defects due to their large surface-to-volume ratio.
In other words, a small geometric abnormality in the die may
result in a serious part defect, such as wrinkling.
Compared to bulk metal forming, which is marked by high
localized stresses in the die due to the large volume of metal
owing in the workpiece, sheet metal forming dies are exposed to
a relatively lower state of stress. Therefore, progressive deteriora-
tion, such as wear, is a dominant failure mode in sheet metal
forming for low to moderate die geometry complexity, as long as
there is no detrimental die design aws that is, the design is in
accordance with standard guidelines. However, when it comes to
polymer composite dies, all of the four failure modes listed above
may be signicant, and as it turns out, the dominant failure modes
depend on the specic sheet metal forming process.
Among the four failure modes, fracture and fatigue dominate
V-die bending. Permanent deformation due to excessive compres-
sive load may occur, most likely at the bend region, but it does not
lead to a signicant part defect, that is, geometric irregularity, as
long as a matched punch and die are used. Wear tends to occur at
the die shoulders where the vast majority of sliding between the
sheet metal and the die takes place at the beginning stage of each
stamping cycle. However, wear at the die shoulders does not af-
fect the nal geometry of the part because it depends on the di-
mensions of punch nose radius and the bend radius in the die.
3.2 Fracture. Fracture or rupture occurs in a bending die
when the die fails catastrophically at the rst stamping cycle or
sometimes after several cycles due to punch overload. As dem-
onstrated by a series of mechanical tests and fractographical stud-
ies performed by Park 1, Ren Shape 5166 is a low-ductility
polymer composite used for sheet metal forming, so it is neces-
sary to look at the fracture mechanism from the viewpoint appli-
cable to brittle or semi-brittle solids. The fracture of Ren Shape
5166 is dominated by debonding between the matrix and the ller
particles. The matrix-ller interface provides the path along which
a crack can propagate. The debonding mechanism also explains
the tension-compression asymmetry in the mechanical behavior of
Ren Shape 5166; that is, debonding has a greater inuence on
tensile properties, reducing the tensile strength signicantly, but
not the compressive strength.
The conditions under which a V-bending die ruptures depend
largely on the volume of the material under the notch or the
bend radius, denoted by the height d in Fig. 4. It is important to
understand that die rupture occurs when the punch has traveled
beyond the exact-bottoming stroke. Tensile stresses exist in the
bottom center of the die when the punch travels beyond the exact-
bottoming stroke, dened as the distance traveled by the punch in
addition to the stroke for exact bottoming. A crack initiates on the
bottom surface of the die and propagates quickly when the maxi-
mum tensile stress exceeds the exural strength of the material.
The probability of reaching this condition increases as d de-
creases. With small d, the exibility near the bend radius region
increases, thus causing the die to ex under loading. The correla-
Fig. 3 Paths leading to tool failure 15
Fig. 4 Bottom crack induced by punch overload and critical stresses
118 Vol. 127, FEBRUARY 2005 Transactions of the ASME
tion between the fracture criterion multiaxial stress state and the
exural strength uniaxial stress state can be justied because
with small d the stress state at the bend region resembles that in a
thin exure specimen, which is subjected to a uniaxial state of
stress.
Figure 5 illustrates the progression of the severely stressed area
as the punch over-travel increases. The gure suggests that die
rupture can be avoided with a sufciently large d by preventing
the maximum stress on the bottom surface of the die from reach-
ing the exural strength. If more material is present under the
bend region, the bulk of the material helps accommodate the de-
formation, thus prohibiting the propagation of the critically
stressed region to the bottom surface of the die.
3.3 Fatigue. In a series of sheet metal bending cycles, the
die experiences cyclically varying stresses as loads are applied
repeatedly. Depending on the location within the die, the stress
state to which the material is subjected may vary signicantly. For
example, when the die is fully loaded, the material in the bulk
region exhibits relatively low stresses, while stress concentration
takes place in the bend radius region. As the most critically
stressed region undergoes cyclic loading, a crack eventually
nucleates at this location and leads to failure.
This research adopted the local stress-life approach, which
works well when the following assumptions are valid 16: 1
fracture is initiation-controlled, 2 the operating stress range is in
the elastic regime, that is, the maximum stress level does not
exceed the yield strength of the material, and 3 the stress ampli-
tude is constant. The low-ductility behavior of Ren Shape 5166
is the key material characteristic that helps satisfy the assumptions
above. In brittle materials, the total fatigue life is dominated by
the life to crack initiation rather than the life expended in crack
propagation. This is due to the fact that very little plastic ow
takes place at the crack tip, and the high stress near the crack tip
causes the interatomic bonds to rupture, resulting in the mecha-
nism of fast crack propagation known as cleavage. If plasticity
can be neglected, the material can accommodate only elastic
strains, which automatically makes the second assumption valid.
The third assumption of constant stress amplitude effectively
mimics the loading condition in a typical sheet metal bending die.
If a die is designed to produce identical parts and to operate under
the same operating conditions for example, loading, clamping,
lubrication, and environment during its service life, then it can be
assumed that the die is subjected to approximately the same state
of stress during each stamping cycle.
The fatigue life for a material such as Ren Shape 5166 is
dened as the number of cycles expended to nucleate a crack in
the material. The underlying assumptions are that thermal effects
are negligible which is warranted if the test frequency is main-
tained below 10 Hz 17, and that the brittle nature of the mate-
rial allows fast crack propagation that is, the life expended in the
propagation of a crack is not signicant. Typically, increasing the
test frequency beyond 10 Hz makes a polymeric material prone to
hysteretic heating and to thermal softening, which leads to a sig-
nicant reduction in fatigue life. The following four generally
accepted stress-based fatigue approaches were investigated to pre-
dict die life in V-die bending.
Maximum Tensile Principal Stress Approach. This method is
most reasonable from a mechanics standpoint because cracks de-
velop in the direction of the maximum tensile stress. This ap-
proach is based on the assumption that a crack develops at a point
that experiences the greatest tensile cyclic stress. One representa-
tive point occurs at the bend region where stress concentration
takes place due to sharp curvature. The time history plot of the
maximum principal tensile stress at the bend region reveals a
sharp peak, which corresponds to the instant when the punch has
traveled over its maximum stroke. This suggests that the die is
subject to zero-to-tension cyclic loading, which requires that the
mean stress and the stress amplitude are identical. The greatest
value of the maximum principal stress, (
1
)
max
, that occurs dur-
ing an entire bending cycle is compared to the SN curve ob-
tained from the zero-to-tension fatigue tests to determine the num-
ber of cycles to failure.
Effective Stress Approach. One stress quantity often utilized
to evaluate fatigue life is the effective stress based on the von
Mises criterion as expressed in Eq. 1.

ae

1
&

1a

2a

2

2a

3a

2

3a

1a

2
(1)
where
ae
is the amplitude of the effective stress, and
1a
,
2a
,
and
3a
are the amplitudes of principal stresses for uctuating
multiaxial stresses. If the mean stress is zero,
ae
can be applied
directly to the SN curves obtained from fully reversed fatigue
tests, and the fatigue life can be determined using the Basquins
equation Eq. 2.

ae
AN
f
B

f
2N
f

b
(2)
Fig. 5 Propagation of critically stressed region: a Punch over-travel d
p
0.32 mm; b punch over-travel
d
p
0.73 mm
Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering FEBRUARY 2005, Vol. 127 119
where A, B,
f
, and b are material constants that can be deter-
mined by tting a linear function to the SN curve on a semi-log
or loglog scale. The maximum
ae
would yield the shortest fa-
tigue life, which would be the life of the die.
Complications arise when the uctuation takes place at a non-
zero mean stress, which is usually the case in sheet metal bending.
In order to consider the effect of mean stress, the following modi-
cation has to be made. First, the effective value of the mean
stress should be dened in terms of the mean values of the prin-
cipal stresses as Eq. 3.

m

1m

2m

3m
(3)
Then, the values obtained from Eqs. 1 and 2 are incorporated
into the modied Goodman equation to obtain Eq. 4.

ae

m
0

ae
1

m

u
(4)
where
ae

m
0
is the equivalent fully reversed cyclic stress am-
plitude and
u
is the ultimate strength. For
u
, the ultimate ten-
sile strength is used if the SN data obtained from uniaxial ten-
sion fatigue tests are used and the exural strength if that obtained
from exure fatigue tests are used. Again, the greatest equivalent
fully reversed cyclic stress amplitude, (
ae

m
0
)
max
, can be used
in the Basquins equation in place of
ae
to obtain the number of
cycles to failure.
SmithWatsonTopper Stress Approach. In order to account
for mean stress effects, Smith, Watson, and Topper 18 proposed
Eq. 5 as a cumulative damage evaluation method.

SWT

max

f
2N
f

b
(5)
In the actual life prediction application,
SWT
in Eq. 5 is re-
placed by its greatest value (
SWT
)
max
over the entire stamping
cycle. The introduction of this function is based on the hypothesis
that there is a single stressstrain function governing the fatigue
of materials. For each material, the
SWT
N plot reduces the data
from multiple tests with different stress ratios to a single curve.
Maximum Shear Plane Approach (Simplied Critical Plane Ap-
proach). The maximum shear plane approach adopts the multi-
axial fatigue theories known as critical plane approaches, which
take into account the normal and shear stresses on the most criti-
cal plane on which damage and cracking occur. The maximum
shear plane approach proposed in this paper considers the normal
stress
n
acting on the maximum shear plane to obtain the fatigue
life. The FE simulation produces stress components at each ele-
ment as output, from which
n
can be easily calculated using the
coordinate transformation and Mohrs circles. Then,
n
is referred
to the zero-to-tension SN curve to nd the corresponding fa-
tigue life.
4 Experimental Methods
4.1 Experimental Setup. The experimental setup for V-die
bending consisted of the die set, test apparatus, and data acquisi-
tion system. The punch and die were machined out of a Ren
Shape 5166 board using a milling machine equipped with a
CNC controller. An Instron Model 4466 universal testing system,
equipped with a 10 kN load cell was used as the test apparatus.
The test method was pre-programmed with the Instron Series IX
software.
4.2 FE Model Validation: Experimental. The experimen-
tal validation of the FE model described in Section 2.2 incorpo-
rated the application of strain gauges. A new set of process con-
ditions, as shown in Column B of Table 1, was selected to
accommodate machine limitations, such as the capacity of the
load frame and of the load cell and material availability. For ex-
ample, a small enough die thickness was selected to allow for the
small maximum bending force required as the bending force is
proportionately related to die thickness and to maintain the die in
a plane stress condition, which is signicant in strain gauge mea-
surements. In addition, 3003-H14 aluminum of thickness 0.8 mm,
which was readily available, was used as the blank material. A
metal-polymer friction coefcient of 0.2 at the punchblankdie
interface was used, which is based on the friction tests presented
in 1. A new FE model was constructed according to Table 1
using ABAQUS/CAE, and the analysis was performed to obtain the
stressstrain responses in the die. The parameters to control the
punch during its downward motion were selected such that the
punch was stopped when the bending force reached 300 N. The
force 300 N was chosen so as to protect the load frame from
overloading. The process was force-controlled so that the maxi-
mum load reached was well under the load cell capacity and that
the die was not overloaded.
Three 45 deg rectangular stacked rosette strain gauges, manu-
factured by Measurements Group, Inc., were bonded to the die
surface at representative points, and corresponding strains simul-
taneously were measured to the directions indicated in Fig. 6.
The strain gauges are not shown in scale. Only two directions
were selected for each strain gage because only six channels were
available in the signal conditioning amplier. Two gauges with a
0.38-mm gauge length measured the strains in the bend and die
shoulder regions, where the strain gradients were large. One gauge
with a 3.05-mm gauge length measured the strains in the bulk
region of the die. A larger gauge was selected for the latter be-
cause the strain gradients were relatively small in the bulk region,
and therefore averaging the strains over the gauge length provided
a more accurate value corresponding to the strain in the coarse
bulk element in the FE model. Figure 7 shows the actual V-die
bending experimental setup and the locations of the gauges. The
strain gauges in Fig. 7 appear larger than they actually are because
they have been covered with silicone black to stabilize the elec-
trical connection.
Table 2 compares six strain components obtained from simula-
tion and measurement. The two sets of data indicate that the FE
model and analysis yield accurate results, especially in the high-
gradient regions, which are more important from a die failure
standpoint. As the gauge locations encompass both the regions of
high and low strain gradients, the local accuracy of the FE model
can be extended to the entire model.
5 Results and Discussions
5.1 Stress Analysis at Die Bend Region. The nal stage of
a V-die bending process is the most important step to consider in
die stressstrain analysis. Figure 8a illustrates a FE simulation
result of the punchblankdie conguration when the punch has
bottomed exactly for a typical sheet metal bending process. The
three components were modeled such that they match perfectly in
Fig. 6 Strain gauge locations and measurement orientations
120 Vol. 127, FEBRUARY 2005 Transactions of the ASME
the nal stage. A magnication of the punchblankdie interface
shows that the three components do not conform completely at the
contact surfaces. The gap at region A suggests that the die may be
subjected to a loading condition similar to three-point beam bend-
ing due to the elastic deformation of the die set and the stiffness of
the sheet metal. As a result, region B where the sheet metal
comes into contact with the die acts as one of the supports and
subjects the die to compressive stresses. Therefore, regions A and
B are the points of interest associated with die failure, which are
dominated by high tensile and compressive stresses, respectively.
This observation is supported by the corresponding stress dis-
tribution in the die set. Figure 8b shows the maximum principal
stress distribution in punch and die. The sheet metal has been
removed from the model to capture the stress gradients in the die
set. The stress states in regions A tension and B compression
are in good agreement with Fig. 8a, that is, the gap and the
contact areas. This physical phenomenon was further veried
through experiments. Figure 9 shows a top view of the V sur-
face of a polymer composite die used in this research after 1000
parts have been produced. The punch was traveled until it had
exactly bottomed. The dark regions indicate the areas where the
aluminum particles rubbed off through repetitive loading, and the
light regions indicate the areas that had no contact with the alu-
minum sheet. These regions agree with regions A and B in the FE
model.
5.2 Parametric Study. The purpose of the parametric study
was to identify the dominant parameters that have the most sig-
nicant inuence on the failure of the die and the die life. V-die
bending typically involves a number of parameters, which can be
classied into three categories: geometric, material, and process.
The base FE model described in Table 1 was used as the
reference model, from which the parameters were varied. For each
case, the base model was modied, and the FEA was per-
formed. Table 3 shows the parameters that were considered and
the output damage parameters, which include the greatest maxi-
mum principal stress (
1
)
max
, the maximum effective stress am-
plitude (
ae

m
0
)
max
, the maximum SmithWatsonTopper
stress (
SWT
)
max
, and the normal stress on the maximum shear
plane
n
, which are the stress values associated with fatigue life
prediction Section 3.3. The upper and lower limits of the param-
eters were determined based on the range that reects the most
commonly used dimensions and working conditions in industry.
The die height at the bend region d was used instead of the
overall height H), as it quanties the volume of material at the
bend region, which is signicant in fracture prediction. Also, in-
Fig. 7 Experimental setup for V-die bending
Fig. 8 Punch-blank-die conguration in a typical V-die bending: a Geometric representation; b maximum
principal stress distribution
Fig. 9 Top view of V surface of the die after 1000 stamping
cycles
Table 2 A comparison of simulated and measured strains
Gauge Location Orientation Strain
Simulated Experimental
1 Die bend (
1
)
0
354 395
(
1
)
90
976 955
2 Die shoulder (
2
)
45
22 25
(
2
)
90
40 39
3 Die center (
3
)
45
42 38
(
3
)
90
71 83
Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering FEBRUARY 2005, Vol. 127 121
stead of punch stroke d
p
, punch over-travel d
p
which is the
amount of punch travel in addition to the distance for exact bot-
toming was considered.
The damage parameters (
1
)
max
, (
ae

m
0
)
max
, and
n
for
each simulation were obtained in the following manner. One com-
plete bending cyclethat is, from the downward movement of the
punch to sheet springbackwas considered for each case, during
which the stress components were computed element by element.
However, the following steps were taken to obtain (
SWT
)
max
: 1
rst, the magnitudes and the directions of the maximum and mini-
mum principal stresses were computed at each time step at each
element in the FE model; 2 concurrently, the magnitudes of the
SWT stresses were calculated at corresponding instances and lo-
cations; 3 then, all the values of
SWT
obtained from steps 1
and 2 were compared to one another to determine the maximum
value. As the stress state tends to be most severe along the V
prole of the die, where a direct contact between the sheet and die
occurs, only the elements along the prole from the valley of the
V bend to the die shoulder were taken into account.
Table 3 clearly shows that the punch over-travel has the most
signicant effect on all four damage parameters, manifested by
large gradients with respect to the parameter. This is an indication
that, in practice, care must be taken in determining the punch
stroke. In addition to punch over-travel, bend radius, die height
under the bend, sheet thickness, and sheet material have appre-
ciable effects on the stresses. The sharper the bend, the greater the
stress concentration, thus causing the increase in stress. However,
(
1
)
max
, (
SWT
)
max
, and
n
tend to level off as the bend radius is
increased above 7 mm. The die height under the bend exhibits a
rather moderate effect on stress. However, in actual die failure
prediction, especially in the fracture mode due to overload, the
size of the critically stressed zonethat is, whether the critical
stress has propagated to the bottom surface of the diemust be
considered. In other words, one needs to assess if the volume of
the material under the V region is sufcient to relieve the stress
concentration. The signicance of this parameter is discussed fur-
ther in the next section. Sheet thickness and sheet material have a
coupled effect on the stress state in the die. The increase in the
former results in the increase in sheet stiffness, and the latter is
related to sheet strength. Recall from Fig. 8 that punch, sheet
metal, and die do not match perfectly even when the punch has
bottomed. Naturally, increases in sheet stiffness and the resistance
of the sheet material due to its strength increase the severity of
the stress state at the V region and tend to reduce die life.
5.3 Experimental Results. Preliminary V-die bending ex-
periments were performed to determine the geometries of the die
that would suit the capacity of the Instron machine 10 kN. The
important dimensions included bend radius R
b
, length of bend or
die thickness L, and height under bend radius d. The rest of the
dimensions conformed to the base model described in Table 1.
A length of bend of 10 mm allows an appropriate range of stresses
to capture both fracture and fatigue failures. In addition, a die
height of 17 mm was selected, as it would allow the die to fail
either by rupture or fatigue by controlling the bending force. A
bend radius of 3 mm, which was the most severe case considered
in the parametric study, was used.
Eleven dies were machined and tested under a range of forming
loads. For each die, to which a cyclic, constant-amplitude load
was applied, the number of cycles to failure was counted. The
following steps were taken to compare the fatigue lives predicted
by the four damage parameters as well as to assess the dominance
of fracture by investigating the maximum tensile principal stress
in the bottom center of the die.
Table 3 Effects of parameter variation
Parameter Value Stress MPa
(
1
)
max
(
ae

m
0
)
max
(
SWT
)
max

n
Bend radius mm 3 8.77 10.73 8.35 4.39
5 4.31 9.24 5.50 2.15
7 2.54 7.94 2.06 1.27
10 2.11 3.97 1.55 1.05
Die shoulder radius
mm
3 4.39 9.42 5.89 2.19
5 4.31 9.24 5.50 2.15
7 4.19 8.96 4.99 2.08
10 4.15 9.01 4.55 2.07
Die opening
mm
20 3.89 7.54 4.70 1.94
30 4.31 9.24 5.50 2.15
40 5.72 9.90 7.86 2.86
50 6.13 9.82 8.13 3.06
Die width
mm
80 4.70 9.38 5.71 2.34
90 4.47 9.37 5.28 2.23
100 4.31 9.24 5.50 2.15
110 4.19 9.32 5.25 2.10
Die height
mm
25 11.65 12.15 12.36 5.82
35 10.12 11.62 11.12 4.94
45 8.95 9.24 9.36 2.15
Sheet thickness mm 0.6 2.95 5.36 3.13 1.48
1.0 4.31 9.24 5.50 2.15
1.4 6.82 10.54 7.10 3.41
Friction
coefcient
0 4.31 9.24 5.50 2.15
0.1 3.42 9.27 4.83 1.67
0.2 3.41 9.29 5.77 1.57
0.3 3.68 9.60 6.19 1.84
0.4 4.46 10.17 5.68 2.23
Sheet strength
(
Y

uts
)
MPa
125 1100-O Al 4.31 9.24 5.50 2.15
243.3 copper 7.66 10.40 7.95 3.53
285 5052-O Al 9.46 13.57 8.63 4.39
400 7030 brass 12.28 15.78 13.67 5.97
Punch over-travel
mm
0 4.31 9.24 5.50 2.15
0.15 26.12 16.51 18.47 13.06
0.25 35.67 24.46 25.23 16.53
0.35 46.25 32.91 34.58 20.93
Die constraint Unconstrained 4.31 9.24 5.50 2.15
Constrained 3.98 9.28 5.39 1.95
122 Vol. 127, FEBRUARY 2005 Transactions of the ASME
1. Punch displacement-controlled experiments were performed
at a prescribed punch force. That is, the displacement was deter-
mined such that it would allow the desired maximum punch force.
The load ranged between 5.1 and 8.8 kN. 2.
2. The FEA was performed, such that the punch was displaced
further than would cause a punch force of 8.8 kN. The punch had
to be over-traveled to cause the force range described in Step 1.
The stress tensors were extracted for the time steps that corre-
sponded to the force range and were used to compute the damage
parameters along the V surface and in the bottom center. Only
the maximum tensile principal stress
1
was calculated for the
bottom center. Each damage parameter was expressed as a func-
tion of the maximum bending force in the range of interest 6.59,
7.30, 8.35, 8.73, and 9.32 kN to yield an equation corresponding
to the curve either linear or power law tted to the data points.
The maximum tensile principal stresses in the die bottom also
were tted, and the equation of the tted line is
1
3.51F
max
0.34 MPa, where F
max
is the punch force at a given time step.
3. The damage parameters computed from the tted equations
were compared to the appropriate SN data shown in Fig. 10
that is, either zero-to-tension or fully reversed 1 to obtain the
fatigue life, and the results are shown in Table 4. For the nine tests
in which the dies failed, the lives predicted by (
1
)
max
,
(
ae

m
0
)
max
, and (
SWT
)
max
are one cycle, which means that
the fracture at the rst cycle, rather than fatigue, would dominate.
These are overly conservative predictions, as the die actually
failed by fatigue. Therefore, in order to distinguish the relative
accuracies between the three stress parameters, a different ap-
proach was used. The damage parameters were reverse-calculated
from the actual number of cycles to failure and were compared to
the counterparts computed from the FEA stresses. The reverse-
calculation was performed by obtaining either the maximum stress
or the stress amplitude from the zero-to-tension or the fully re-
versed SN data, respectively. The comparison between the
FEA-based and the actual life-based stresses was quantied as the
stress ratio, which is dened as Eq. 6.
Stress ratio
Damage parameter based on actual N
f
Damage parameter based on FEA
(6)
The stress ratios for the ten cases in which fatigue occurred are
presented in Fig. 11. The damage parameter can be considered
accurate if the stress ratio approaches unity. In addition, the pre-
diction made by the damage parameter is conservative if the stress
ratio is below 1.
From Table 4, it can be seen that
1
is below the exural
strength of Ren Shape 5166 for all cases, and therefore none of
the dies failed by fracture on initial loading. The parameters
(
1
)
max
, (
ae

m
0
)
max
, and (
SWT
)
max
underestimate life;
n
over-predicts life. Figure 11 indicates that the effective stress am-
plitude parameter (
ae

m
0
)
max
provides the least accurate pre-
Fig. 10 Flexure S-N data for Ren Shape 5166 1: a zero-to-
tension; b fully reversed
Fig. 11 A comparison of stress ratios of various damage
parameters
Table 4 Fatigue lives predicted by damage parameters. Maximum tensile principal stress in
the bottom center of the die calculated from FEA
No. (F
max
)
avg
kN
Actual
N
f
Predicted number of cycles to failure (N
f
)
pred
1
* MPa
(
1
)
max
(
ae

m
0
)
max
(
SWT
)
max

n
1 8.8 28 1 1 1 565 30.5
2 8.1 507 1 1 1 1,128 28.1
3 7.9 83 1 1 1 1,375 27.4
4 8.0 39 1 1 1 1,246 27.7
5 7.9 1,287 1 1 1 1,375 27.4
6 7.8 DNF 1 1 1 1,518 27.0
7 7.9 29 1 1 1 1,375 27.4
8 7.9 50 1 1 1 1,375 27.4
9 8.8 467 1 1 1 565 30.5
10 6.8 127 1 1 1 4,082 23.5
11 5.1 DNF 1 12 21,928 17.6
Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering FEBRUARY 2005, Vol. 127 123
diction. The parameters (
SWT
)
max
and
n
offer similar degrees of
accuracy, as the ideal stress ratio line lies between the two.
Figure 12a presents the typical fatigue failure mode that oc-
curred in a V-bending die. The crack nucleated near the end of the
bend arc as indicated in the gure and propagated through the
height of the die leading to fracture. The location of crack initia-
tion is in agreement with the stress states predicted by the FEA.
The photo of a die that underwent catastrophic fracture or
crushing due to punch overload is shown in Fig. 12b. The
crack initiated in the bottom center of the die and propagated
upward. The crack was caused by the maximum tensile principal
stress which acts in the horizontal direction, as can be seen by its
orientation.
5.4 General Die Design Guidelines. The parametric study
and the experimental results presented in the previous sections can
be used to develop general tool design guidelines for Ren Shape
5166. For V-die bending, it is desirable to design the die such that
fracture or fatigue does not occur before producing the intended
number of parts.
As for determining the geometries of a V-bending die, the V
notch can be considered as the stress raiser. Naturally, as the bend
radius or notch radius decreases, the critical stresses increase.
Based on the FEA performed in the parametric study, the stress
levels show an exponential decrease with increasing bend radius.
Following an exponential decay, the stresses tend to level off as
the bend radius increases beyond 7 mm. This rule applies to the
dies that have sufcient thickness or length of bend, as the FEA
was performed under plane strain condition. It is recommended
that a die opening of less than 30 mm be used, which would
warrant stabilized minimal stress levels. In addition, die height
under the bend radius must be chosen carefully such that the vol-
ume of material is large enough to absorb the strain energy during
deformation, especially when a small bend radius is used and a
large punch over-travel is applied.
Further modication can be applied to die geometry to reduce
the stress concentration in the V region. As observed previously
in Fig. 8, the nonconformity between the sheet metal and the die
leads to the tensile stress at the gap, which subjects the die to
fatigue crack nucleation. The die can be designed such that more
material is present to ll or compensate for the gap, thus dis-
tributing the compressive stress more uniformly and minimizing
the tensile stress. It is recommended that the modication be made
based on the FEA, as the amount of gap depends on several pa-
rameters, namely, sheet material and thickness, and bend radius.
However, the amount and the geometry of the additional material
must be determined carefully, as it may distort the nal geometry
of the part being bent, as well as the stress in the die.
Important process parameters to consider include punch stroke
and speed. Because the stresses at the V notch and therefore the
associated die life are extremely sensitive to punch travel distance.
In the FEA, the stress increased by as much as 10 MPa per 0.1
mm of punch over-travel. Therefore, modied bending processes,
such as coining, which involves high, localized compressive
stresses between punch nose and die surface to compensate for
springback, are not recommended. The manufacturer of Ren
Shape 5166 species that the punch be driven by a servo-
hydraulic system and that the speed does not exceed 760 mm/min
30 in/min for most types of sheet metal forming operations.
However, for V-die bending, the punch speed should be kept sig-
nicantly lower than the specied value due to the high sensitivity
to punch over-travel. For example, doubling the crosshead speed
of the Instron with no other load exerted except the weight of the
load cell itself resulted in doubling the force measured by the
load cell due to the inertia of the crosshead unit. Therefore, the
punch speed or the frequency if repetitive stamping is consid-
ered must be selected well below the suggested speed, such that
platen and die inertia effects are minimized.
6 Conclusion
In this paper, a failure analysis-based method to estimate the
fatigue life of a 90 V-bending die fabricated from ATH-lled
polyurethane was presented. Based on the low-ductility nature of
the tooling material, dictated by the matrix-ller debonding failure
mechanism, it was found that the local stress-based fatigue ap-
proach was appropriate for die failure mode and life predictions.
The damage analysis of V-bending dies involved the stressstrain
analysis of the forming process using the FEA and applying the
damage parameters to the materials data to predict die failure
mode and life.
The experimental results showed that fracture due to overload
and fatigue are the competing die failure modes in V-die bending.
Among the damage parameters considered, the normal stress on
the maximum shear plane and the SmithWatsonTopper stress
provide the most accurate fatigue life prediction, the latter being
more conservative; the maximum tensile principal stress provides
suitable fracture prediction. A parametric study revealed that
punch over-travel is the most signicant parameter, followed by
bend radius, sheet thickness and strength, and volume of material
under the bend radius. These results establish the generic guide-
lines for V-bending die design for low-ductility, powder-lled,
polymer composite tooling materials.
In order to expand the range of application of the developed
method, parts with more complex geometries can be considered. A
rectangular drawn part would be a good place to start, as it in-
volves both bending and stretching. However, since it deals with
as a three-dimensional problem as the critical region is likely to
be at the corners, the corresponding three-dimensional FE model
must be developed. A further modication to the rectangular part
would be adding local, protruding features, which would result in
adding more critically stressed regions. Then the task would be to
determine the location of failure as well as the mode itself.
Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge Vantico Inc. for their tech-
nical support and supply of their products. The authors also would
like to thank Professors David McDowell, Christopher Lynch,
Min Zhou, and Richard Neu in the George W. Woodruff School of
Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology for
technical support and helpful discussions.
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