Thermo-mechanical interactions in hot stamping

Manual, mechanical die spotting is a significant time and cost factor in the manufacturing busi-ness of forming tools. This particularly applies to warm forming, since the mechanical and ge-ometrical properties of the part strongly depend on the tool's cooling performance. An even distribution of the contact pressure between tool and blank is key to a uniform cooling behav-ior, and hence, a homogenous micro structure of the formed part.This paper presents the current developments on transitioning the spotting of hot forming tools into virtual production environment in order to reduce manual labor and lower costs. It specifically elaborates on numerical predictions of spotted tool surfaces under the influence of elastic tool and machine deformations, and furthermore, it explains the aspect of the tem-perature induced tool expansion and contraction.Since the character of heat transfer from workpiece to tooling mainly depends on the contact pressure on the tool surface, a correct numerical prediction of the tool's actual surface evens the path for a virtual try-out in the future.