In order to improve the lifetime of blanking tools, the application of high quality steel, heat treatment and coatings has become an interesting issue for many European companies dealing with stamping, punching and blanking operations. Important trends such as longer life time, higher accuracy and higher complexity of the products are challenging and require more special materials and techniques. The technological solutions to improve the existing processes are not obvious because of the amount of possibilities in available materials, heat and surface treatments for the envisaged industrial processes and applications. An in-depth research to understand the manufacturing processes with the consequence of an increased performance and lifetime of the tools as well as the opportunity of further optimization was the main goal of this project. However, the ever increasing production rate and the use of high strength steel sheet can induce problems in the wear and fracture behavior of blanking tools with low lifetimes as a consequence. This project studied the tribological synergy of the substrate-heat treatmentsurface relationship and their influence on life-time in heavy load conditions. The project shows some specials regarding the conventional tool making. Many influences in the mechanical treatment of different tool materials can support the live time or can lead to very bad cutting results, that means for example you have loose particles or bad polished and compacted surfaces. A preliminary study was performed on the cutting edges of special designed triangular punches made of several high alloyed steels which were heat treated in a conventional way and by deep cryogenic treatment after quenching. The influence of additional plasmanitriding treatments and coatings were investigated. After the research some demonstration tools were tested in industrial conditions to show the feasibility of certain selected combinations. From results of the preliminary study it can be concluded that all the selected steel substrates performed well during blanking operations. The best results were found with the Vanadis 4e and 23 steel. A special coating could improve the adhesive wear of the reference steel 1.2379. In case of the PM steels the use of a coating is optional. Furthermore DCT treatment could improve the flaking and wear behaviour in both the lab scale and industrial tests. The surface preparation after EDM is found to have an important positive influence on the wear especially when the surface is blast and polished. The industrial blanking tests confirm the positive contribution of DCT on several sheet materials. The goals of the project were achieved.weiterlesen