COMPARATIVE NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF CONVENTIONAL DEEP DRAWING AND RUBBER ASSISTED FORMING CUP MADE UP OF STAINLESS STEEL304

Conventional deep drawing processes are being replaced by better forming processes such as hydro farming and rubber assisted forming. The main objective of introducing these new processes is to improve the permeability of the process and to produce parts with very complex features. In the present work, a sample part made out of Stainless Steel 304 is formed using both conventional process and rubber assisted process. Natural rubber is used as a rubber diaphragm to assist during forming. The formability of the processes is verified by measuring thickness of the part at various sections and studying the post forming microstructure. The paper gives in detail about the experimental set up, rubber properties, FEM simulation and micro structural analysis.