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**Chapter 7** 

© 2012 Guo and Gao, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 Guo and Gao, licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**The Design of a Programmable Metal** 

Metal forming is one of the oldest production processes that can be traced back to the beginning of the Industry Revolution. Today, metal forming press is still one of the most commonly used manufacturing machineries. Every day, millions of parts are produced by metal forming ranging from battery caps to automotive body panels. Therefore, even a small

In the early days, metal forming presses used a simple slide crank mechanism that converted the rotating motion and the energy from the unprogrammable motor to the linear motion of the ram to form the workpiece. Throughout the years, the study of the metal forming reveals the desirable press performance: smooth pressing to avoid large transient force and vibration, long dwelling time to ensure uniform metal deformation, and slow

To achieve the desirable performance, many different types of metal forming presses have been developed. In general, they can be divided into two types: mechanical presses and hydraulic presses. The former is fast (high speed presses may reach up to several thousand shots per minute) and energy efficient (the large flywheel eases the impulsive force), but lacks flexibility. The latter is flexible (their motions, including the travel and the velocity, can be programmed), but is expensive to build and to operate. This is because the hydraulic system is expensive and must be constantly pressurized during the operation with or without the metal forming work. Recently, there are programmable mechanical presses driven by servomotors. They are a newest version of the mechanical presses that is programmable and of better perfromance, e.g. low noises, excellent efficiencies and high precision for metal forming operations such as drawing, stamping, blanking, etc. Compared with traditional mechanical presses, programmable mechanical presses provide less

**Forming Press and Its Ram Motion** 

Weizhong Guo and Feng Gao

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/48078I

**1. Introduction** 

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

improvement may add to significant corporative gain.

stamping tonnage due to the capability limit of servomotors.

releasing to minimize workpiece spring-back.

**Chapter 7** 
