Development of thin-film sensors for data acquisition in cold forging tools

The manufacturing of high-quality cold forged components with respect to environmental and economic requirements requires a high process reliability and long tool life. For this purpose, digitization offers new opportunities to increase process understanding by implementing inline data acquisition. Measurement of process parameters close to high loaded forming zones poses a serious challenge. Furthermore, tool wear cannot be detected inline. Therefore, integrated and wear-resistant thin-film sensors represent an innovative approach to realize in situ data acquisition. Hence, a sensor design will be introduced enabling both temperature measurement with spatial resolution and real-time wear detection directly in the forging zone. First, a thermal simulation is performed to determine the temperature range expected in the forming zone to conceive sensor structures and layers. Subsequently, various standard tool coatings are evaluated regarding their tribological and mechanical characteristics. Finally, the embedded system was conceptualized to read out the sensors and send the preprocessed data via USB-interface or BLE.