Finite element modeling and experimental results of brass elliptic cups using a new deep drawing process through conical dies

•A new technique for deep drawing of elliptic cups was introduced.•Maximum thickness strain is inversely proportional to the punch fillet radius used.•Maximum strain occurred at the region of the ends of the major axis.•An elliptic cup with an LDR up to 2.28 was successfully achieved. This paper introduces a new technique for deep drawing of elliptic cups through a conical die without blank holder or draw beads. In this technique an elliptic-cup is produced by pushing a circular blank using a flat-headed elliptic punch through a conical die with an elliptic aperture in a single stroke. A 3D parametric finite element (FE) model was built using the commercial FE-package ANSYS/APDL. Effects of die and punch geometry including, half-cone angle, die fillet radius, die aperture length and punch fillet radius on limiting drawing ratio (LDR), drawing load and thickness strain of the cup have been investigated numerically for optimal process design. A die with half cone angle of 18° has shown the best drawability for the new technique. An experimental set-up has been designed, manufactured, and used for experimental production of elliptical shaped sheet-metal cups. A total of seven punches having aspect ratios ranging from 2 to 2.25 and a die with an aspect ratio of 2 have been manufactured and used. Tensile tests were carried out to obtain the stress–strain behavior for the formed sheet metal. Experiments were conducted on blanks of brass (CuZn33) with initial thicknesses of 1.5, 1.9, 2.4 and 3mm at different clearance ratios (c/t). Effects of blank thickness and clearance ratio on limiting drawing ratio, drawing load and thickness strain were numerically and experimentally investigated. Finite element model results showed good agreement with experimental results. An elliptic cup with a limiting drawing ratio (LDR) of 2.28 has been successfully achieved using the proposed technique and set-up.