Press Tooling: 80% Fewer Fatigue Failures After FEA-Driven Redesign
Recurring fatigue cracks in press die components were stopping the line. Ansys FEA located the stress concentrations; redesigned geometry and heat treatment cut fatigue failures by 80%.
Press die components in an aluminium extrusion and metal forming operation kept cracking in service. Each failure meant an unplanned line stop and another tooling bill.
The problem
Fatigue cracking is rarely a material problem and almost never random. It repeats in the same place because the geometry puts it there. But on the shop floor the symptom looks like bad luck: a tool that “just doesn’t last”, replaced on a schedule nobody chose.
The real costs were the ones not on the tooling invoice — unplanned stops, scrapped parts around the failure, and maintenance intervals set by fear rather than by data.
The approach
- FEA on the critical components (Ansys) — stamping die and bending tool parts loaded as they actually see service, not as a convenient simplification.
- Located the stress concentrations driving crack initiation, and separated the ones caused by geometry from those caused by the material and heat-treatment specification.
- Redesigned the geometry at those points and revised the material and heat-treatment spec accordingly.
- Validated with follow-up analysis before cutting metal, so the redesign was checked against the same load case that broke the original.
The result
- Fatigue-related tooling failures down 80%.
- Maintenance intervals extended and, more importantly, based on evidence.
- The validated methodology was reused across the rest of the die portfolio — the second and third tools cost far less to fix than the first.
Where this applies
If a tool fails in the same place every time, that is not wear — it is a design input you can still change. An FEA study on one component usually pays for itself in a single avoided line stop.
I do structural, fatigue and weld assessments on production tooling — and I tell you what to change, not just where it is red. Request a quote or see all services.