Spring-Back Analysis of the Vee Bending Process for High-Strength Stainless Steel

Abstract

This study discussed the evaluation of bending process using high-strength SUS 304 (HS-SUS-304) material of high degree tolerances, and its application in a safe, strongbox, and strongroom protection system. This bending process is one of the several material-forming techniques widely used in the manufacturing industry. Moreover, incorrectly selected parameters such as the V-die punch radius, the angle of V-die bending, and the angle of machine parameters often leads to material failure and wrong final dimensions. The V-bending process was chosen for evaluation because it exhibits significant spring-back effect and has a wide range of industrial applications. The experimental method utilized HS-SUS 304 with a thickness of 3.0 mm that meets the ASTM A-240 requirement, and the input parameters used for V-die angle as well as tip punch radius were chosen in order to achieve the 90o ± 0.5o, and 50o ± 0.5o degrees of the workpieces. The V-die angle of 89o was selected with a tip punch radius of 1.0 mm and 1.2 mm. Furthermore, the spring-back effect was analyzed and evaluated to meet the standard angle requirement, and the results showed that the settings on the bending machine need to be adjusted to achieve angles within tolerances of degrees. It was observed that when the process bend angles on the machine was set at 93.75o and 52.83o with 1.0 mm V-dies tip punch radius, the spring-back factor results produce an average of 0.9609, 0.9618, and 0.9600. Meanwhile, this average increased to 0.9634, 0.9641, and 0.9655, by using 1.2 mm.