LS-DYNA USED TO ANALYZE THE MANUFACTURING OF THIN WALLED CANS

The ironing process and the backward can extrusion process are widely used for the manufacturing of thin walled cans. In the ironing process the die is commonly made with a cylindrical die land and in backward can extrusion the punch is commonly made with a cylindrical punch land. LS-Dyna has been used in the analysis of the influence, which the die land and the punch land have. The results suggest that a small misalignment of the die land, respectively the punch land may cause the process to become unstable resulting in uneven can height and uneven can wall thickness. Simulations also suggest that it is possible, by making minor changes to the geometry of the die land respectively the punch land, to make the process significantly more robust with regard to the influence from a small misalignment of the land. The results obtained from the LS-Dyna simulations are in good agreement with experimentally obtained results.