• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.55-63
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• 2008

Fine blanking is a process of press shearing which makes it possible to produce the thick sheet metal of the finished surface and the close dimensional accuracy over the whole material thickness in the single blanking operation. In this paper, a plate holder of automotive seat recliner is manufactured by FCF(Flow Control Forming) method using the conventional mechanical press instead of the fine blanking press. Main processes for manufacturing of the plate holder by FCF method are embossing, half blanking and trimming processes. Optimal clearance, stripper force and counter force to increase the dimensional accuracy of the plate holder have been investigated by FE-analysis. As a result of FE-analysis, the clearance for both embossing and half blanking processes was -2%t and the forces of stripper and counter were 25ton and 15ton, respectively. After manufacturing the plate holder by FCF method, the measured dimensional characteristics have been compared with the required specifications as the final product. Although the dimensional accuracy of the plate holder manufactured by FCF method was a little inferior to that by fine blanking process, it was satisfactory in a general sense.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.64-71
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• 2008

Burr generated on plate holder should be removed through additional process, because it has an influence on the function of automotive seat recliner. The process layout to perform simultaneously embossing and half blanking of plate holder has been developed in this study in order to minimize the influence of burr formation. The optimal process condition to satisfy the required dimensional accuracy of plate holder has been determined using Taguchi method and finite element analysis. It has been shown from experimental results that the proposed method is decidedly superior to the previous FCF method from the aspect of sheared surface, roll-over, flatness and burr height.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.214-221
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• 2011

In recent years, automotive seat components have been manufactured by the fine blanking process, allowing an improvement of dimensional accuracy at sheared surface in series production. However, the rollover has increased and die failures have occurred more frequently when manufacturing gears by fine blanking. Consequently, important goals for manufacturing seat recliner parts with gears have been to decrease the rollover as well as to improve the tool life. In this study, the half blanking and shaving processes were introduced to improve aforementioned problems for the lower tooth, the main component of a seat recliner. For this purpose, the half blanking process was optimized using the finite element (FE) analysis and design of experiment (DOE). The optimized conditions resulting from this study were an offset of 0.2 mm, a clearance of 0.1 mm and a penetration depth of 4.5 mm. Fine blanking experiment conducted under the optimal condition resulted in a rollover depth decrease from 1.9 to 1.3 mm, and no die failure occurrence.