Tauring Group drastically cuts development time by replacing trial and error with simulation

Using FEM simulation allowed us to make a critical step to wards process improvements and to strengthen Tauring Group’s technology leadership on profile bending. ESI PAM-STAMP met project expectations. Moreover, ESI's skills and best practices were a major help in minimizing the learning curve and optimizing results.

Tommaso Beccuti

Chief Operating Officer/Tauring SpA

Tauring Group, producer of high tech bending machinery, specializes in the bending of complex profiles. Despite its extensive in-house
experience and expertise, reaching the complex shapes requested by its customers became more and more challenging. The development time for new parts was increasing, and so were the costs.

Tauring Group was therefore looking for a way to improve its service for its customers by answering the most complex demands in a reasonable time at a lower direct cost.

By introducing Finite Element Method (FEM) simulation, the aim was to predict and simulate cold bending production processes, thereby minimizing the cost and time an empirical approach would require.

There was no doubt that FEM simulation could accelerate process development, improve R&D know-how, and therefore improve the quality and reliability of Tauring's products and services. However, there was some hesitation due to the fact that FEM simulation is a scientific approach which relies on characterization of materials, kinematics and other data not always readily available to the customer.

The first test performed with FEM was on an extreme bending case. The real sample showed significant defects, and the test was to establish if these would also be visible in simulation.

The results of the test were very promising : defects were forecasted properly. Tauring decided to try a case where the objective was to use simulation to help eliminate problems virtually, before production start.

This part was a complex thin-walled aluminum profile. Freeform bending of such parts is normally critical, and can produce severe wrinkling in the final part. This was such a case.

Tauring used ESI PAM-STAMP, ESI's sheet metal forming simulation solution, to propose modified kinematics for the tools and the usage of compressed sand inside the profile cavities. Their engineers found the best combination of parameters with the help of simulation, and this new tooling and process setup finally led to a good quality part.

Project findings confirm the accuracy of simulation upon precise definition of scientific parameters, and a guaranteed significant cost
reduction mainly on complex applications. For standard parts, where in-house expertise provides solutions by experience, gathering all the required data would be slower.

Therefore, it is essential to identify the applications for which FEM simulation makes sense, and the ones for which the traditional way of working is faster. FEM simulation becomes almost mandatory when it comes to mastering complex bending processes. It effectively extends the range of products that can be manufactured without defects, whilst saving time and money.

With that in mind, Tauring Group’s commitment to excellence makes FEM simulation with ESI PAM-STAMP a core competence and a pillar of continuous process and product improvement.

Tauring Group is an SME whose parent company (Tauring SpA) was founded in the early 1950s and produces cold forming industrial
machinery - Roll and Plate Bending. Tauring Group is a technology leader in profile, tube and pipe bending processes - consolidated through the union of Tauring, Roccia, and Saf brands. The group builds high-tech bending machines whose high degree of reliability, accuracy and ease of use provide customers with a high return in terms of quality and costs. Its wide range of products such as angle rolls and pipe bends as well as applications such as pipe and copper pipe benders, square tube bending machines…, together with its distributed sales and customer service networks, meet a wide range of technical and commercial needs.