Advanced tribomechanical modelling of sheet metal forming for the automotive industry

Deep drawing is commonly applied in the automotive industry to produce high quality automotive panels. The deformations applied to the sheet metal in these processes are complex. Accurate modelling of the sheet metal behaviour and its interaction with the forming tools is crucial to quantitatively predict these forming processes. Thus, an accurate material constitutive model and an accurate tribological model are required. In this paper, the current state-of-the-art of sheet metal forming models are used to investigate the model predictions, i.e. the Tata Steel constitutive material model and the friction model implemented by TriboForm. A cross-die experiment on an uncoated automotive sheet steel is performed as a base of reference to assess the prediction quality. The strain evolution in the cross-die formed samples is compared to the numerically predicted evolution. The results show a dependency on the applied deformation mode and the accuracy of the numerical model on the accuracy of the predictions.