[Customer Applicasions] OTSURU Co. Ltd.
Prediction of and measures against cracks and wrinkles
Ooturu Co., Ltd., a manufacturer located in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, builds trial products to order. The company’s major customers are automotive engineering companies in Japan, including Honda Engineering Co., Ltd., Nissan, and Toyota.
JSTAMP/NV has been used since 2003 to deliver trial tools quickly. Considering the characteristics of the trial products, Ooturu Co., Ltd. uses laser shearing and applies JSTAMP/NV only for tool manufacturing.
- Company profile
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- OTSURU Co. Ltd.
- http://www.otsuru.co.jp/
- Industry: Trial production manufacturer
- JSTAMP deployment: 2003
Motivation
Ooturu Co., Ltd. was faced with the problem of generation change. There were not enough experienced engineers, and young engineers should have addressed some cases on their own. At the same time, increasing usage of high-tensile strength steels led to the requirement for prediction and preview of severe pressing conditions.
For example, consider that the delivery date is two weeks after order receipt.
- - 1st week: CAD/CAM/CAE & tool fabrication
- - 2nd week: Sheet metal forming and assembling
The CAD/CAM/CAE phase is the key to ensure D&Q (Delivery and Quality).
Fig.1 The trial tool is the key to ensure D&Q
Operational framework
Ooturu Co., Ltd. applies CAE to predict cracks, wrinkles (see fig. 2), and some parts of springback. Owing to the limited duration of the CAD/CAM/CAE phase, they build simple simulation models that can be calculated within a few hours. Trim line development is not required thanks to the laser shearing with nominal dimensions.
Four operators who understand CAD/CAM operate all CAD/CAM/CAE works for 20 parts per a month. They started the operation after attending training seminars at JSOL followed by a few months of OJT. The data exchange between the CAD and the IGES formats is reasonably fine.
Fig. 2 Trial tool: CAE simulation result for cracks and wrinkles)
Achievement
Previously, the manufacturing process and the drawing geometry were determined using the mold of the product geometry. The process of trial and error led to the loss of many workloads and days. By applying CAE to the process, Ooturu Co., Ltd. could reduce the loss by half (see Fig. 3).
If the customer had specified a manufacturing process, Ooturu Co.,Ltd. would follow the process to manufacture the tool. With the help of CAE simulation, Ooturu Co., Ltd. can suggest a better manufacturing process to the customer and proceed with manufacturing as suggested.
CAE is one of the essential techniques along with CAD/CAM. By applying CAE, Ooturu Co., Ltd. gained more than they expected. CAE covered the lack of experience of the young engineers and improved the manufacturing process. Their next step is to apply CAE to the springback of hightensile materials.
Fig. 3 Reduction in loss due to trial and errors
Case list
- Customer Applicasions
- Case study
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- Improve QCD (Quality, Cost, and Delivery) in the early phase
- Realistic reproduction of forming process and evaluation
- *Product names and service names are the trademarks or the registered trademarks of their proprietors.
