Patent ID: 7200496

Claim:
A method of predicting wear of a die surface, the method comprising: providing a radius value and a hardness value of the die surface; providing a thickness value and a yield strength of a sheet material; providing a coefficient of friction between the die surface and the sheet material; providing a material draw-in distance value; calculating a wear depth value in accordance with the following equation: h wear = C wear × μ × σ y a × t sheet b H bead × R bead c × X slide where: h wear — is the average wear depth of the bead surface per hit, C wear , a, b, and c are constants. μ is the coefficient of friction at the interface between the die surface and the sheet material. σ y is the yield strength of the sheet material, t sheet is the thickness of the sheet material, R bead is the radius of the draw bead, H bead is the hardness of the die surface, and X slide is the draw-in distance of the sheet material; generating a signal based on the wear depth value; and transmitting the signal to a computation device.