MICRO HOLE FABRICATION BY MECHANICAL PUNCHING PROCESS

The objective of our study is to investigate the micro fabric ability by conventional metal forming processes. In the present investigation, micro hole punching was studied. We tried to control punching process at the micro level and scaled down the standard blanking condition for $25{\mu}m$ hole fabrication. To accommodate this, tungsten carbide tooling sets and micro punching press were carefully designed and assembled meeting accuracy requirements for $25{\mu}m$ hole punching. With our developments, 100, 50, and $25{\mu}m$ holes were successfully made on metal foils such as brass and stainless steel of 100, 50, and $25{\mu}m$ in thickness, respectively, and hole sizes and shapes were measured and analyzed to investigate fabrication accuracy. Shear behavior during micro punching was also discussed. Our study showed that the conventional punching process could produce high quality holes down to $25{\mu}m$.