This paper replaces a conventional austenitic stainless steel sheet to a ferritic stainless steel for the cost reduction of a pulsator cover of a washing machine. However, ferritic stainless steel has poor formability in comparison with austenitic one. The low formability of ferritic steel results in problems during stamping such as fracture, wrinkling, shape inaccuracy and so on. Design modification of the stamping tool is carried out with the aid of the finite element analysis for multistage stamping process of the pulsator cover. The simulation results show that fracture occurs on top of the product while wrinkles are generated by the excess metal near the wing part. Modification of the initial stamping die is performed to improve metal flow and to eliminate problems during the stamping process. Simulation with the modified design fully demonstrates that safe forming is possible without inferiorities.
