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Strategies to Improve the Forming Quality of Sheets
Published in R. Ganesh Narayanan, Jay S. Gunasekera, Sustainable Material Forming and Joining, 2019
In rubber pad forming, there is a rigid die and a flexible rubber pad, which are involved in plastically deforming a sheet. The shape provided in the rigid die is imparted to the sheet with the help of rubber pad as shown in Figure 7.11. The presence of rubber pad distributes the deformation uniformly and improves the formability of sheets, as compared to the conventional dies. The design and manufacture of only one of the dies is necessary. This minimizes the total fabrication cost. The precise assembly of rigid die is not required in this case. The time and cost involved in forming press is greatly minimized.
Manufacturing methods for metallic bipolar plates for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell
Published in Materials and Manufacturing Processes, 2019
Oluwaseun Ayotunde Alo, Iyiola Olatunji Otunniyi, HCvZ Pienaar
Rubber pad forming (RPF) is a sheet forming process, which in contrast to the traditional sheet-forming process that involves a rigid die set, uses only one rigid die (i.e., the upper die) and a lower die that consists of a rubber pad (Fig. 2). That is, design and accurate fabrication of only one rigid die are required, and problems that could be associated with the precise assembly of the upper rigid and lower dies are eliminated.[126] Also, the flexible contact surface between the rigid die and the rubber pad leads to improved formability.[127,128] According to a study by Jeong et al.[6] on the RPF of BPs using SUS 304 plate, installing the equipment on the press took ≈ 5 min, the positioning of rubber pad and blank into the container took ≈ 3 s, pressing the plate took 2 s, and removal of the formed BP and inserting another blank took about 5 s. Total time to produce one BP is ≈ 10 s, which is very short. Therefore, compared to other metal forming processes for BP production, the RPF combine advantages such as simplicity, low tooling cost, and high production speed. These benefits of the RPF favor mass production of low-cost metallic BPs.