In the automobile industry, the design of optimal blank shape becomes a significant part of the stamping. It provides many evident advantages, sush as enhancement of formability, reduction of material cost and product development period. However, the nesting process, required for the optimal usage of materials in the blanking becomes more complicated as the blank shape becomes complicated, like most optimal blank shape. In this study, stamping process optimization system for the optimal usage of material has been developed through the integration of optimal blank design and optimal nesting. For optimal blank design, a radius vector method, the modified version of the initial nodal velocity method, the past work of the present author, have been proposed. Both the optimal blank design and optimal nesting programs have been developed under the GUI environment for the convenience of engineers. The efficiency of the optimization system has been verified with some chosen problems.

Nanomachining process, static nanoplowing, is one of the most promising lithographic technologies in terms of the low cost of operation and variety of workable materials. In nanomachining process, chemical effects are more dominant factor compared with those by physical deformation or fracture. For example, during the nanoscratch on a silicon surface in the atmosphere, micro protuberances are formed due to the mechanochemical reaction between diamond tip and the surfaces. On the contrary, in case of chemically stable materials, such as ceramic or glass, surface protuberances are not formed. The purpose of this study is to understand effects of the mechanochemical reaction between tip and surfaces on deformation behaviors of hard-brittle materials. Nanometerscale elasoplastic deformation behavior of single crystal silicon (100) was characterized with micro protuberance phenomena, and compared with that of borosilicate (Pyrex glass 7740). In addition, effects of the silicon protuberances on nanoscratch test results were discussed.

Ring rolling process is simulated by using the general-purpose commercial finite element analysis software, MSC.Superform. Because the deforming region is restricted to the vicinity of the roll gap, only a ring segment spanning the roll gap is analyzed in order to save computation time and cost. First, a plain ring rolling of rectangular cross-section is simulated. Comparisons between computation and experiment show good agreement in the cross-sectional configuration of the deformed ring. Then, a profile ring with an external round groove is analyzed. The rolls with and without groove have been analyzed to compare the amount of side spread. It is found that the grooves in the rolls are effective in reducing the amount of side spread.

The nanoprobe based on lithography, mainly represented by SPM based technologies, has been recognized as potential application to fabricate the surface nanostructures because of its operational versatility and simplicity. The objective of the work is to suggest new mastless pattern fabrication technique using the combination of machining by nanoindenter and KOH wet etching. The scratch option of the nanoindenter is a very promising method for obtaining nanometer scale features on a large size specimen because it has a very wide working area and load range. Sample line patterns were machined on a silicon surface, which has a native oxide on it, by constant load scratch (CLS) of the Nanoindenter with a Berkovich diamond tip, and they were etched in KOH solutions to investigate chemical characteristics of the machined silicon surface. After the etching process, the convex structure was made because of masking effect of the affected layer generated by nano-scratch. On the basis of this fact, some line patterns with convex structures were fabricated. Achieved patterns can be used as a mold that will be used for mass production processes such as nanoimprint or PDMS molding process. All morphological data of scratch traces were scanned using atomic force microscope (AFM).

A systematic approach for the process design in deep drawing is necessary to improve the quality of drawn cups. This study concentrates mainly on the influence of process design strategy on the product quality. Different types of process design were chosen from initial blank of 100mm in diameter to make final cup of 50mm in diameter. In order to make this cup, we used 2-stage deep drawing. Forming analyses are carried out to find out better design in terms of drawing force. It is proposed that the process design, in which maximum drawing forces during successive operations are equal, is a more desirable one. Through experiment, it is found that the proposed case shows equivalent values in terms of maximum drawing force during successive operations in real process and can achieve the best product quality in terms of dimensional accuracy. Thus, it is shown that proposed design is very effective in the improvement of quality in drawn cups and may be extended to deep drawing with more stages.

A monobloc TDS(Tube Drive Shaft) has been developed by using the rotary swaging process which is one of the incremental forming process. In order to estimate the developed TDS performance characteristics such as natural frequency, strength, stiffness and mass, finite element analysis has been carried out using commercial software, MSC/NASTRAN. The calculated performance characteristics have been compared with analysis results of SDS(Solid Drive Shaft) to know how much improve the performance characteristics. Also the sensitivity analyses of design parameters for the tube length and diameter have been performed. From the analysis results, it was found that the TDS allowed for a high frequency and could be designed to be much lighter than SDS. This advantage can give possibility to tune the NVH (Noise-Vibration-Harshness) characteristics.

The dimensions of die and workpiece are changed continuously during loading, unloading, and ejecting stage. Finally, to predict precisely the dimension of forged part and get the die dimension for the net-shape components, the analysis of die and workpiece should be evaluated from the loading to ejecting. Therefore, the experimental and FEM analyses are performed to investigate the elastic characteristics at workpiece and die in the closed-die upsetting for ferrous material FE techniques are proposed to consider the unloading and ejecting stages and estimate more precisely the dimension of forged part and die. The dimensional changes fur the workpiece were evaluated quantatively during loading, unloading, and ejecting stages. The strains measured by the strain gages were compared with the estimated values by the FEM.

Rigid-plastic finite element analyses on the deformation of slabs at various width reductions have been performed. By using commercial finite element code, dog-bone profile, crop profile and the longitudinal width profile after edging and Horizontal rolling have been analysed. The deformation behavior of slab for the heavy edger mill has also been compared with that for the sizing press. From the deformation analyses, it was found that the sizing press-horizontal rolling method is more efficient in width reduction than that of heavy edger mill-horizontal rolling. The results of finite element analyses fer the deformation of slab were well confirmed by the actual operational data. It was found that the amount of width variation after sizing and rolling is about 5∼10mm.