A Design of Manufacturing Processes for Valve-Spring Retainer Component

Abstract

New manufacturing processes for a valve-spring retainer (VSR) are proposed by replacing the initial solid billet for commercially available thick-walled pipes. The rigid-plastic FEM has been applied to simulate the conventional five-stage manufacturing process for VSR component. The existing process includes mainly backward extrusion and heading operations. A process design methodology is proposed and applied for the analysis. The process design criteria are the maximum force requirement within the available press limit, and the material saving by reducing the wastes from the process. As a result, several simulations of one-step process from selected stocks to the final product shape are performed for a possibly better process than the conventional one. Statistics among different processes are summarized and compared each other in terms of number of required operations for final product, forging load, material waste, number of individual die, process time, and even the possibility of fracture during service. Experiment also has been conducted to ensure that the proposed one-step process is safe operation without geometrical defects.