Powder metallurgy (PM) compaction tooling design is essential to reducing costs and maximizing design features. In its simplest form, tooling is a process – the planning, design, and engineering of tools to mold a component that’ll fit and perform correctly within an assembly.
The FAQs compiled below will help you understand the big-picture approach of using PM tooling to make a sturdier and more cost-effective product:
To summarize the process and how it affects how your design’s transformation into a finished part, I’ve selected eight customer FAQs:
A: Powder compaction tooling is an assembly of individual components that go into a die set. Together, they create a closed cavity that holds loose powder prior to compaction.
A: Manufacturers design powder compaction tools with the raw materials, press, and component shape in mind. The tool’s design should mirror a part’s shape and attributes.
A basic set of powder metallurgy tooling used for single-level components includes:
Pressing a part involves taking a “column” of powder metal, gravity-feeding it into a compaction die cavity, and compressing it under high pressure. This forms a net- or near-net-shape part.
With the materials now available, powder metallurgy manufacturers can produce a component to a desired shape much faster than other metal forming techniques, such as machining or casting. PM tooling also allows suppliers to mass-produce components off a single set of compaction tools. This makes it a much lower-cost option than other forming methods and still gives customers the same integrity they would get from competing forming technologies.
A: Each tool set has its own set of requirements and challenges, but a tool design engineer typically works through the same processing questions:
Parts with increased levels or complexity will have more complex tooling, which allows for control of density and ejection from the die.
Even though multilevel parts are more intricate, the design thought process is ultimately pretty similar to single-level parts.
A: There is a lot of team collaboration that goes into designing powder compaction tooling. Common tooling design goals are:
A: Tooling design for powder metallurgy has several steps and considerations before fabrication. These considerations ensure that projects are cost-effective and that tooling sets are designed with the endurance and toughness needed for long-continuous compaction runs.
A PM product engineering team will initiate four design tasks prior to tool manufacturing:
To ensure the component design is optimized for manufacturability in a powder metallurgy setting, a full evaluation is in order. A team assesses the component’s print for:
Throughout this assessment, suppliers look for opportunities to enhance a part’s manufacturability.
The prototype tooling will ultimately become the production tooling, so selecting a powder metal tool steel depends on the part’s intended end use. Factors to consider include:
The goal at this point is to balance these factors and pick the grade of tooling material that will give the best performance.
A design engineer creates a solid model of the molded part, adjusting for the part considerations listed above. It’s important to consider the dimensional change for the raw material prior to tooling manufacture.
Using the generated part model (above), the engineer builds a solid model assembly with 3D modeling software. This allows for accurate visualization and manipulation of the tooling components relative to one another.
The designer creates a 2D drawing for the tool models. This includes every member of the assembly.
Each drawing consists of:
A: During the tool manufacturing stage, the 2D drawings inspire the creation of the tooling router. The 3D models facilitate CNC programming.
Experienced tool and die makers use a variety of equipment to manufacture compaction tooling:
A: Powder metallurgy tooling needs to endure hundreds of thousands of production cycles. Powder metallurgy suppliers run tool management plans in-house for this reason. A plan might include:
Each component presents a learning curve when estimating tool life. However, past experience and components with similar geometries provide insight into choice of materials and design considerations.
The entire manufacturing process influences tooling design, and vice versa. As processes and tooling technology improve, so will powder metallurgy buyers’ end results. Innovations in the works include:
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