Tribological influence of tool surface roughness within microforming

A comparative friction study of tooling dies with a simple internal cylindrical geometry has been performed. The purpose of the experiment consist of studying the influence of the surface characteristics of tooling dies on the frictional behaviour in a micro bulk forming operation. This research will seek to contribute with knowledge in the field of the category of structural size effects. By evaluating and benchmarking three different surface topographies, in an Ø1 and an Ø2 millimetre cylindrical forming-die, it is expected that frictional performance and forming limits can be evaluated, with the option of extracting general guidelines for evaluation of surface characteristics for dies utilized for micro-forming. The DCE test will be supported by numerical analysis in order to determine the friction factor.