Generally, press molds have thermal and mechanical impact wear during usage. To improve the life of the mold, enhancement of mechanical properties such as abrasion resistance and shockproof capability is required. To solve this, we propose the multi-layered cladding process of functional materials with different mixing ratios. AISI-D2 material, known as cold die steel, was used as base material and AISI-M4 and -H13 powders were used for surface cladding on the base metal for high resistance wear and shockproof capability. Four cases of specimens were prepared to compare mechanical properties after tests. Through this study, a specimen multiple cladded with mixing M4 and H13 powders for middle layer and M4 powder only for top layer showed 80% improvement in shockproof capability. We posit that this method based on multi-layer cladding with a combination of functional metal powders increased mold life.

A thin sheet of metal with corrugated structures has been utilized in various devices: heat exchangers, separators in fuel cells, and many others. However, it is not easy to fabricate thin corrugated structures using a single-step stamping process due to their geometrical complexity. To solve this problem, firstly, a plate type heat exchanger was redesigned to attain the optimal value of aspect ratio and the optimal shape of corrugated structures for the actual loading conditions. A forming analysis of the corrugated plate was then carried out to determine the process parameters. From this work, the optimal value of aspect ratio was found to be 4.6. In addition, the process parameters of heat exchanger forming were optimized using the optimal value of aspect ratio, and the analytical results were evaluated through experiments. The results obtained indicated good agreements between them.