INVESTIGATIONS ON THE EFFECT OF COATING MATERIAL AND METHOD ON DIE WEAR IN STAMPING OF ADVANCED HIGH STRENGTH STEELS

Despite the advantages of advanced high strength steels (AHSS), their stamping into functional lightweight parts demands prolonged die life, which necessitates the use of alternative substrates, coating materials, and/or surface conditioning to minimize and delay the die wear. In order to avoid frequent die replacement and surface quality problems on the stamped parts, the metalworking industry has been investigating various approaches such as reducing/refining the carbide particles, adding alloying elements, and elevating the hardness and toughness values for both substrate materials and coatings. The objective of this work was to investigate the effects of different coatings on the wear behavior of a some selected tool steel materials (die sample of interest) against two different AHSS sheet blanks through a cylinder-on-flat type reciprocating test method. After wear tests, both die sample and sheet blank surface were microscopically examined. Wear resistance of the slider was quantified from wear scar width measurements. Results showed that TD and CVD coated die samples performed better than the two other PVD coated samples.