Determination of the formability of stainless steel sheets using the technological proofing method

Abstract This paper shows the proofing of the formability of stainless steel materials with a new technological testing method to determine differences in their forming behaviours. The new method uses different round punch forms in the cup-drawing test to cause ruptures and to combine systematic rising stretch-forming division ranges with the deep-drawing process, as described by Hennig. In this way the deep-drawability as well as the stretch-formability of sheet metal materials are tested simultaneously. Through this increase in the proofing conditions, the broad demands in manufacturing complicated panels are greater than had so far been considered in an experiment. In the tests, only small differences could be shown in the forming behaviours of the different stainless steel materials, and they form industrial plants. However, this depends on the change in the load between the industrial practice test and the current experiments. On the other hand, the results could show the improvement in the material from a supplier only by attaining nearly the same or better results with these sheets, which has to be proved once again in practice.