Extremely high strength of the ultra-high-strength steels leads to increased load factors on the tooling machines and punching tools. This experimental study examines how much convex punch geometry affects cutting forces when punching ultra-high-strength steels. Tools used in punching tests were four different convex sheared rooftop punches and one conventional flat end punch, to which rooftop punches were compared to. The material in punching tests was ultra-high-strength steel Ruukki Optim 960 QC, with a thickness of 4 mm. The test material in punching tests was sheared with rooftop punches and a flat end punch and occurred cutting forces were measured. The qualities of punched holes were evaluated visually and the roundness measurements were also performed. The results show that the cutting forces of Optim 960 QC can be reduced radically with optimal convex punch geometry. With using 14-degree shear angle of the punch end, the cutting forces reduced up to 57 % compared to forces of the conventional flat end tool. However, largest tested shear angles caused several negative effects on the cutting quality of the holes and therefore they are not suitable in all applications. Punching tests proved that the cutting clearance had no appreciable effect on cutting forces when punching ultra-high-strength steel. Instead there was a noticeable effect on the quality of the punched hole, especially when large shear angles were used.

Today's business environment and intense competition drives organizations to find improved and more efficient ways to develop their production. For many manufacturers one of the key challenges is to find the bottle necks of the current production line. Overall Equipment Efficiency measurement can be used to find these, but the available solutions are usually expensive and specialized equipment. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how hobbyist level electronics and very cost-effective solutions can successfully be used to measure Overall Equipment Efficiency. Such a system was developed and tested in a factory environment.

The focus of this study was to test a low-cost level plastic printer in the multi-material printing application using principles of design for additive manufacturing (DFAM). Two sample structures were designed in the project. One of the main planning principles of the examples was to integrate multiple functions into one part and intelligently utilize a variety of materials and reduce parts count. The most common material used in the experiments was the basic PLA, which is widely used, easy-to-print and economical alternative. As special materials, electrically conductive PLA-based graphene filament and highly flexible polyurethane-based filament was used. The results show that multi-material printing is also possible with lower cost devices and it makes it easier for smart products to be manufactured cost-effectively. It has also been found that multi-material printing can be technically challenging and that further research and experiments in this subject are needed. In the future, the research topic will be even more interesting as equipment and materials will develop. This paper presents detailed printing parameters for all the materials used in the printing tests.

This paper focuses on the development of a new type of roll bending machine. Our primary aim was to build a machine that could form ultra-high-strength steels (UHS) with smaller inner radii than those achieved by traditional bending methods. One of the main planning principles was modular construction, so a length of a bending line could be easily selected or changed later by the user without major changes to the basic construction of the machine. In contrast, in traditional roll forming, the blank does not move during the forming process, so the accuracy of the profile can be better controlled. Different kinds of cut to size-open profiles can be produced by this machine, which utilizes and combines bending and rolling techniques. In the initial stages of the project, the needs of smaller companies that do short-run productions are taken into account. First, the prototype is designed mainly for research use; moreover, it is important that the properties of the machine are multifunctional. In addition, forming can be done in several ways by this machine. In this paper, there is shown creation of a machine, designing of construction and manufacturing steps of the whole machine including assembling. Also detailed description of the various functional components and the operating principle is presented. The results of the forming tests are also presented.