Factors Affecting the Life of Stamping Mold: The Complete Analysis Guide

The factors affecting the life of stamping mold are design, use and maintenance. Only do a good job in each details, can the service life of the mold be prolong.

Definition of the Life of Stamping Mold

The life of stamping mold refers to the total number of parts that can be processed by the mold under the premise of ensuring the quality of the stamping parts, including the life after repeated mold repairs on the working face and the replacement of wearing parts for a precision metal stamping manufacturers in china. The life of high speed stamping die is generally divided into tool design life and service life. Under normal circumstances, the service life of the mold is greater than the design life of the mold.

Basis for the Life Design of Stamping Mold

• For a precision stamping inc, the production life of stamped metal parts will first be defined when making a strategy for each new metal stamping project. It is the primary basis for the design life of precision stamping tool.
• We should consider other factors like the actual working state of mold  in precision stamping industries. Such as the frequency of production per minute and the loss of die is also different.

Factors Affecting the Life of Stamping Mold

The Design Quality of Mold

• Stamping Process of Parts

The division of process content should be reasonable in progressive stamping process design to avoid too centralized design of process content; The stamping angle should be reasonable to avoid sharp corners on the inserts of the progressive die; The forming mold should try to make the material flow uniform to avoid the occurrence of wrinkling stacking phenomenon. Try to choose raw materials with good stamping technology to reduce stamping deformation force; Ensure the grade, thickness and surface quality of raw materials.

• Rationality of Mold Structure Design

Reasonable dies’ structure is conducive to improve the bearing capacity of the dies.  When customer require a custom metal design stamp, a precision die and stamping inc should fully consider the stress and structural strength of each structural component.

• Selection of Mold Materials

The selection of stamping material is very important to the life of the mold. The material division of each component needs to be based on the stress of each component. In another words, It is according to the chemical composition, structure, hardness and metallurgical quality of the material itself.

There are two basic requirements for the material of the parts of the custom stamping dies:

The performance of material has high hardness and high strength, as well as high wear resistance and enough toughness.

The machining and manufacturing process of custom metal stamping parts is generally more complicated. Therefore, It is usually necessary to select mold materials with excellent performance according to the material characteristics.

• Choice of Guide Mechanism Accuracy

The accuracy of the guide mechanism of the stamping dies is very important to the life of mold. An accurate and reliable guide mechanism has a great influence on reducing the wear of working parts of the mold and avoiding the bite of the mold.

The Manufacturing Quality of Mold

• Quality of Castings and Forgings

Casting quality and forgings quality directly affect the life of the mold. Defects in casting and forgings may directly lead to the scrap of the mold. The sudden failure of hidden internal defects during use may cause irreparable safety accidents and have a great impact on production. Therefore, the quality control of stamping material is very important in the mold manufacturing stage.

• Machining Accuracy

The pros and cons of the surface quality of the working parts of the mold has a significant impact on the wear resistance, anti-gluing resistance, anti-fracture ability of the mold, and directly influence the service life of die, especially the surface roughness value had a great influence on the mold.

• Assembly Accuracy

For all the mounting surface/hole and datum surface/hole that need to be assembled, in the case of guaranteed processing accuracy, the assembly must be assembled in accordance with reasonable assembly techniques to ensure the quality of each process.  Assembly accuracy directly affects product quality and mold life.

• Heat Treatment

The choice of heat treatment process and equipment has a great impact on the life of the custom metal stamping tool.  That is to say, a good heat treatment process can give full play to the properties of the steel material of the tool. In order to achieve the hardness, strength, toughness and wear resistance required by the stamping tools. On the contrary, An unreasonable heat treatment process will cause carbonization of the mold body or insufficient hardness, thereby accelerating the wear of the tool and affecting the life of the tool & dies.

The Usage of Mold

• Precision of Stamping Equipment

The precision and rigidity of stamping equipment are extremely important to the life of stamping die.

• Mold Clamping and Inspection

The guide parts of the mold are well lubricated and the working parts of the mold are free from cracks, unreasonable gaps and other defects. In general, correct use of mold is beneficial to increase mold life.

The Maintenance of Mold

Disassemble all working parts and inclined wedge mechanism of the mold. Maintain and repair the moving parts, safety parts, elastic components, pneumatic components, unloading mechanism, auxiliary mechanism and so on.

Conclusion

We should use the advanced mold manufacturing technology and the implement mold manufacturing quality management in the design, manufacture, use and maintenance of the process of custom custom metal stamping dies. In order to develop specialized manufacturing processes, implement standardized operational process, continuously improve the equipment and environment for mold manufacturing. It can better to extend the service life of mould and ensure the quality of parts production.