INTELLCUTPROCESS

The main objective of the INTELLCUTPROCESS project is to design and develop a predictive system of wear warning for the cutting tools of high elastic limit steels (punching and shearing).

The objectives of INTELLCUTPROCESS will be achieved through a holistic approach that includes:

• The investigation and measurement of the wear of the cutting tool.
• Influenced process parameters such as cutting force, die clearance, cutting angle, etc,
• The optimization of the tool (material and protective coating or coating of the cutting tool).
• The development of (intelligent) tools equipped with sensors.
• The development of a predictive wear warning system.

The industrial partners of the project INTELLCUTPROCESS cover the most of the value chain of the manufacturing process of automotive parts, starting with the manufacturer of machine tools, cutting tools and ending with the automotive component stamper. Their extensive experience has allowed them to identify the current unsolved challenges for AHSS processing, which will be solved in the different Work Packages of this project.

The industrial participation is composed by ADIENT, GPA, FAGOR ARRASATE and ZORROTZ, which demonstrates the industrial interest in this project.

ADIENT manufactures among other components, automotive seats for customers all over the world and FAGOR ARRASATE is a world specialist in the design and manufacture of sheet metal cutting and processing lines for steel manufacturers and service centers.

With the participation of the company GPA, specialist in coatings and ZORROTZ, as a manufacturer of cutting blades in INTELLCUTPROCESS, will give the possibility to develop new materials and protective coatings against wear that could also be used for other tools.

With the participation of all these companies, INTELLCUTPROCESS ensures the technical interest and transferability of results in other areas.

As a manufacturer of cutting machines, FAGOR ARRASATE wants to make available to its customers advanced cutting lines capable of producing high quality parts with optimal and durable tooling materials.

ADIENT, as a supplier of seat components for the automotive industry, also aims to improve their productivity. Achieving both objectives requires optimization of cutting parameters and correct knowledge of their influence on cutting forces, but also the proper selection of tool steel and coating processes to optimize production economy.

In order to achieve the objectives set, the consortium is completed by BFI, MONDRAGON UNIBERTSITATEA and KONIKER.

BFI, apart of being the project coordinator, will be in charge of developing an optical tool system for evaluating the quality of the cutting edge of drilled holes. In addition, they will participate in the characterization of the wear protection coatings developed at GPA.

KONIKER, in support of FAGOR ARRASATE, will work on the validation of the new developments and on the fine-tuning of the shear test bench in the laboratory for the experimental tests related to the quality of the cut. KONIKER will collaborate also with BFI in the transfer of the experimental data obtained for the implementation of the new wear prediction software to be developed.

MONDRAGON UNIBERTSITATEA will work closely with FAGOR to understand the wear mechanisms of the cutting blades. It will lead the tasks related to the simulation of shearing processes by FEM including deformable tools and advanced damage criteria and will participate in the development of experimental tasks on the test bench to understand the fundamentals of shearing.

MONDRAGON UNIBERTSITATEA will also support FAGOR in the selection of the best sensors to be installed on the shear test bench and will work with ZORROTZ to analyse the new materials using a tribometer before carrying out industrial tests.

The project will be coordinated by BFI in close collaboration with the other partners and following the guidelines of the RFCS Program in terms of reporting, coordination of partner meetings, etc. A multidisciplinary approach will be used based on state-of-the-art characterization, laboratory testing, modeling, software development and production testing divided into 8 work packages. The main interactions between the work packages and the workflow are illustrated in the figure below.

INTELLCUTPROCESS has received funding from the European Union’s RFCS (Research Fund for Coal and Steel) programme under Grant Agreement No 899331.