Investigation of the influence of material and sheet thickness on a three-stage process chain for cold forming of micro gears with a module of 0.1 mm

In many industries, there is a trend towards miniaturization of technical components, such as drive systems, which enable the solution of high-precision positioning tasks because of their low volume and high dynamics. Geared micro parts are currently mainly produced by cutting and LIGA processes, but in mass production cold forming offers ecological and economic benefits. However, the cold forming of micro gears is restricted to a lower module limit of m = 0.2 mm due to high tool stresses, size effects and handling difficulties. To solve these challenges, in this contribution a three-stage forming process chain for the manufacturing micro gears (m = 0.1 mm) is investigated. In the first stage, a pin as wheel blank is extruded from sheet metal, which is geared subsequently by lateral extrusion. Finally, the micro gear is separated from sheet by shear cutting. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the applicability of the process chain for the materials Cu-OFE and CuZn30. In addition, the influence of the sheet thickness, which has a major impact on the forming process and the material efficiency, is analyzed. The geometrical and mechanical component properties as well as the machine data are evaluated to assess the variables.