High-Performance Forging Dies

Hot-forging dies are subjected to high mechanical stresses at elevated temperatures, and may degrade within days of operation due to wear and thermal fatigue. The resulting maintenance stoppages represent a significant share of production costs. This project integrates materials selection, thermochemical and surface treatments, coatings and machining, while the UFSC team addresses the structural analysis and condition monitoring of the die through numerical simulation, embedded sensing and artificial intelligence.

Funding and Partners

The project was funded under the Rota 2030 program (Forging Tools call) with a total budget of R$ 523,908.00 allocated for UFSC, of which R$ 363,908.00 correspond to operating expenses and R$ 160,000.00 to equipment. Funds were administered by FEESC. UFSC contributed in-kind with its manufacturing, product development, CAD and CAE laboratories. The project builds upon a previous collaboration (2021–2023) on aluminum injection tooling, involving UCS, SENAI and UDESC.

Toyota and Zen participated as industry partners, with validation planned on their production dies.

Team

Coordinator: Prof. Carlos Mauricio Sacchelli (CTJ). Faculty: Lucas Weihmann, Marcos Alves Rabelo, Modesto Hurtado Ferrer, Pablo Andretta Jaskowiak, Sérgio Junichi Idehara, Thiago Pontin Tancredi and Tiago Vieira da Cunha, together with undergraduate students and technical staff of the Joinville Technological Center (CTJ).