INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRECISION ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 875-881 MAY 2014 / 875 © KSPE and Springer 2014 Design of the Multi-Stage Progressive Tool for Blanking a Sheet Metal Component Manoj Balakrishnan 1,# and Jason Cherian Issac 1 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Saintgits College of Engineering, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India, 686532 # Corresponding Author / E-mail: manoj.balakrishnan@saintgits.org, TEL: +91-9746613228, FAX: +91-481-2430349 KEYWORDS: Progressive tool, Economy factor, Blanking, Centre of pressure, CAD The field of sheet metal stamping had gained wide acceptance and importance especially in mechanical sector where complicated design features which once consumed greater man power and effort became simpler with the introduction of die sets in the 1920s that changed the whole scenario. With regard to the extreme relevance of this area in the present, the current work is focused on developing a multi-stage progressive tool (die) which can be utilized for stamping (blanking) a sheet metal component. In order to arrive at an efficient design, several strip layouts are analyzed. The feasible one that possesses and satisfies a balanced nature of high strip utilization factor and yield is selected. Centre of pressure is determined by distributing the action of punches from the centre of die plate in four quadrants. Thereafter, calculation of forces involved, dimensions of plates, etc., are performed. Based on the calculated values, 2-D drawing of all components including optimum strip layout is performed initially and thereafter 3-D models of components of the designed progressive tool are created. After careful observation at every stage of design, proper remedial actions are taken so that resulting design is feasible both in economical and production aspects. Manuscript received: November 6, 2013 / Revised: January 3, 2014 / Accepted: March 1, 2014 1. Introduction The metal stamping die is a press tool capable of producing large quantities of parts that are consistent in appearance, quality, and dimensional accuracy. Here, a complex work part is split up into a number of simple parts and is gradually finished as it passes sequentially through a number of stations, ejected at the last. Reduced size of components, difficulty to produce the same by conventional machining methods strongly mentions the importance of progressive die system, 1 simplifying machining time and improving future assembly process. Zhi-Xin Jia et al. 2 by using the design tools showed that the same when constructed on a PC and integrated with a CAD system can dramatically improve the design quality and hence both time and cost can be saved simultaneously. Abbas Vafaeesefat et al. 3 had compared the numerical and experimental results of sheet metal flanging using designed tools (including punches, dies and other sub components) and proved that the simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental, enabling the designers to perform the same in order to save materials and time thereby the net cost. Kee Joo Kim et al. 4 had developed basic techniques basic techniques in order to apply aluminium sheets for automotive hood. The sheet was subjected to punching action to obtain measurement data in sheet forming for formability evaluations. An integrated modeling and process planning system was developed for bending operations of progressive dies by Li et al. 5 based on feature and rule approaches. In order to improve the efficiency of die designers and manufacturers, Choi et al. 6 worked on computer-aided design and manufacturing system for irregular-shaped sheet metal products for blanking or piercing and bending operations on knowledge-based rules. Most of the research works mentioned above were either focused on NOMENCLATURE E = Economy factor, in % , = Coordinates of centre of pressure, in mm t = strip thickness, in mm T min = Minimum thickness of die plate , in mm X Y DOI: 10.1007/s12541-014-0411-0