The effect of using rubber for applying counter force in fine blanking of AISI 304 Stainless Steel

Fine blanking is a precision metal shearing operation. The near-finish quality of the product and the achievable tolerances makes it a suitable candidate for auto part manufacturing. But fine blanking to be carried out, requires costly equipment like a triple action press. A proposed technique[1] attempts to reduce the same by adapting it to a relatively cheaper double action press by using rubber as a secondary tool. Present work attempts to analyze and compare the newly developed technique with the conventional one. An experimental set-up was designed and developed for the same and fine blanking experiments were conducted on AISI 304 Stainless Steel sheets. Fine blanked edge quality evaluation confirms that the new process qualifies to replace the existing one, without compromising on the shear edge quality.