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Increasing technological requirements, as well as the demand for an efficient production demands high performance materials and enhanced manufacturing processes. The development of a new manufacturing process, sheet-bulk metal forming (SBMF), is one approach to produce lightweight forming parts with an increased number of functional properties while, at the same time, combining the advantages of sheet and bulk metal forming. For SBMF processes, the specific adjustment of the friction between tool and workpiece for a specifically designed material flow, which is called tailored friction, is of great importance. The reduction of friction is essential in order to ensure a homogeneous forming zone. However, a higher friction can be used to control the material flow to increase the local thickness of the work piece for additional functional integration. This paper shows the development of surface structures for SBMF tools by means of high-feed milling. Process parameters like the tilt angle or the feed are varied to influence the surface parameters of the structures, which results in different tribological properties of the forming tool. The structured surfaces are subsequently coated with a wear resistant CrAlN coating, processed by a magnetron-sputtering process (PVD) to enhance the lifetime and performance of the forming tool. Finally, a ring compressing test is used to investigate the tribological behavior of the coated structures.

Milling is a machining process in which material removal occurs due to the rotary motion of a cutting tool relative to a typically stationary workpiece. In modern machining centers, up to and exceeding six degrees of freedom for motion relative to the tool and workpiece are possible, which results in a very complex chip and force formation. For the process layout, simulations can be used to calculate the occurring process forces, which are needed, e.g., for the prediction of surface errors of the workpiece, or for tool wear and process optimization examinations. One limiting factor for the quality of simulation results is the parametrization of the models. The most important parameters for milling simulations are the ones that calibrate the force model, as nearly every modeled process characteristic depends on the forces. This article presents the combination of a milling simulation with the Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (BFGS) optimization algorithm for the fast determination of force parameters that are valid for a wide range of process parameters. Experiments were conducted to measure the process forces during milling with different process parameters. The measured forces serve as basis for tests regarding the quality of the determined force parameters. The effect of the tool runout on the optimization result is also discussed, as this may have significant influence on the forces when using tools with more than one tooth. The article ends with a conclusion, in which some notes about the practical application of the algorithm are given.

The selective control of the frictional behavior (tailored friction) in metal forming processes is of high importance with regard to technical and economic aspects. This applies especially for the sheet-bulk-metal forming process. Milling with intentionally invoked regenerative tool vibrations can be applied in order to generate structured surfaces with tailored friction properties on the forming tool. These structures affect the formation of lubrication pockets during the forming process which determine the local frictional properties exceedingly. The full potential of this emerging technology can, however, only be revealed if the heuristic and design-relevant knowledge is acquired and provided to the tool-designer already in the early phases of process development. One thing the tool-designer has to specify is the local frictional behavior on the tool surface. But, however, he does not know which milling parameters lead to the necessary surface structures because in most cases he has no expert knowledge in milling, tribology and forming tools. In this paper data mining is used to determine the frictional behavior based on these parameters. The potential of this method in the described context is revealed by the application on data derived from simulation results, both from milling simulations and contact simulations. The latter are performed by using a Halfspace model for rough surface contact. Both approaches for these simulations, the data mining process and the results are explained to the reader.

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