Product Innovation, Reverse Engineering & Rapid Prototyping 285 Development of Turret Punch Cutting Tool Using Reverse Engineering Method M.M.Noor, R.Daud, K.Kadirgama, M.R.M.Rejab, N.M.Zuki N.M., Z.Hamedon, S.N.Azizan Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26300 Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. Phone: +6095492223; Fax: +6095492244 Email: muhamad@ump.edu.my , rosdidaud@ump.edu.my , kumaran@ump.edu.my Abstract: This paper presents the reverse engineering technique to develop turret punch cutting tool for Trumatic TC2020R FMC machine. Different shear angle being tested to investigate the cutting process and tool wear. Result shows that 12 o cutting tool has the highest tools life with poor performance. Cutting tool with 4.5 o to 6.5 o shear angle obtains lower tool life and better performance compare with 12 o shear angle. By increasing the shearing angle, it will reduce the stress on the tool. Keywords: Turret punch, Tool wear, Shearing angle, Tool stress. I. INTRODUCTION The cutting tool is very important part in the machining process. In the designing process of the cutting tools, a few important issues must be considered in term of costing, quality of the product and machining time. The factor that will affect the design is the work piece, tool material, punch geometry, sheet metal thickness and clearance [1]. Changing the cutting tool geometry, the tool life will be improved. This is because selection of right punch geometry is very important for tool life and the final product. The improvement of tool life is very important because tool will often facing adhesive and abrasive wear in contact zone [2]. In addition, tool will affect dimensional and form error. As in phase process of shearing, after given the force, work piece will be in plastic phase and then will reach fracture limit and micro cracks. The productivity and quality in sheet metal can be assessed by the burr height after blanking process [3]. The manufacturing processes involve in sheet metal processing are started with cutting, forming and finishing. Kapalkjian classified basic types of sheet metal processing into three groups; shearing, bending, and forming, [4] while Vukota Buljavonic classified into two groups; cutting and plastic deformation, [2]. But they agreed the processes related for cutting or shearing processes. Referred to Kapalkjian, he classified shearing processes are blanking, punching, die cutting, fine blanking and slitting,[1] while in plastic deformation or forming groups are bending, stretch forming, deep drawing and various other forming processes and shearing involves the cutting of flat material forms from sheet, plate or strip [3]. II. DESIGN OF THE CUTTING TOOL Reverse engineering method is use to develop the cutting tools. Measurements on actual current available tools are vital and used to initiate and develop the ideas. These are to ensure alternative tools design can be realise. The Coordinate Measure Machine type of measurement instrument has been used in this study. Alternative design in work is very important because it need in analysis and fabrication steps. Design software has been used. CAD software has been employed to do the designing. All of the parts were drawn with different shear angle. It will drawn with 4.5°,6.5°,8.5°,10.5°, and 12.5°. Figure 1(a) and 1(b) shows the design for the 4.5 o and 8.5 o . III. REVERSE ENGINEERING (a) (b) Figure 1: (a) 4.5 o design (b) 8.5 o Finite Element Analysis been done to predict the critical point of the insert during punching or blanking process. ALGOR V16 Fempro been used to do the analysis. This analysis is used to predict the critical part which is wear will occur. The most important analysis must be conduct due to tool wear cannot be measured during the process. IV. FABRICATION OF CUTTING TOOL Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) wire [5] has been selected to fabricate the cutting tool. Surface grinder has been used to reduce the thickness of the tool. Testing is one of the methods to verify the design, even analysis software can be used to predict wear but in the real practice,