1 Influence of height and location of V-ring indenter on Void Volume Fraction variations

In this paper a finite element simulation of fine blanking process has been demonstrated. The commercial finite element code ABAQUS has been used to simulate the large deformation in punch/die interaction area while a user written visual FORTRAN program has been developed to calculate the variations of void volume fraction (VVF) and incorporate it into crack initiation by specifying the crack propagation time. To prevent element distortion at the crack tip, the finite element mesh is locally remeshed. After each remeshing, the program maps solutions from the previous deformed mesh to the new model. The value of VVF at each element is obtained from Gurson [1] and Tvergaard damage model. Since the height and location of V-ring indenter have a great influence on the fine blanking process conditions, in the present research work, comparisons are made for different V-ring locations and heights. Describing the variations of VVF would lead to estimate crack initiation time and consequently the quality of sheared surface